About Mark

Mark Houser is an author, professional speaker, and award-winning journalist who shares surprising and inspirational stories about the men and women behind America's landmark skyscrapers.

A native of Pittsburgh, Mark has long been fascinated by the city’s proud industrial heritage and legendary tycoons such as Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick. His monthly Pittsburgh Magazine column about the historic downtown highrises built for these business titans led Mark to seek out similar stories in other American cities for his first book, MultiStories.

Mark’s latest book, Highrises Art Deco, is a collaboration with digital artist Chris Hytha. The two have traveled across the country to photograph, research, and document America’s most spectacular skyscrapers. Their online Highrises Collection gallery features Chris’s stunning drone scan compositions of 200 landmark towers from coast to coast, each accompanied by Mark’s original writing.

More than 2,000 people have gone on Mark’s guided skyscraper rooftop tours in Pittsburgh. An award-winning freelance journalist and former reporter and editor at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Mark is also a veteran public relations professional and has spoken to audiences from New York to California to Germany. He has appeared on CNN, FOX, NPR, and in the New Yorker, where he shared his true story of watching helplessly at a local bar as his guest, the future president of France, scorched his mouth on habanero salsa.