Hugh Macomber Ferriss (July 12, 1889 – January 28, 1962) was an American architect, illustrator, and poet.

[1][2] He was associated with exploring the psychological condition of modern urban life, a common cultural enquiry of the first decades of the twentieth century.

Ferriss also influenced popular culture, for example Gotham City (the setting for Batman), Kerry Conran's Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow and Rapture from BioShock.

Early in his career, Ferriss began to specialize in creating architectural renderings for other architects' work rather than designing buildings himself.

Some of his earliest drawings are of Gilbert's Woolworth Building; they reveal that Ferriss's illustrations had not yet developed his signature dark, moody appearance.

By 1920, Ferriss had begun to develop his own style, frequently presenting the building at night, lit up by spotlights, or in a fog, as if photographed with a soft focus.

In 1916, New York City had passed landmark zoning laws that regulated and limited the massing of buildings according to a formula.

His writing in the book betrayed an ambivalence to the rapid urbanization of America:There are occasional mornings when, with an early fog not yet dispersed, one finds oneself, on stepping onto the parapet, the spectator of an even more nebulous panorama.

To an imaginative spectator, it might seem that he is perched in some elevated stage box to witness some gigantic spectacle, some cyclopean drama of forms; and that the curtain has not yet risen .