Buildings Are Meant To Be Used

With the partial exception of industrial buildings, you can always distinguish buildings constructed before the 1950s from their later counterparts by looking for light courts. If your lights are, at best, incandescent bulbs, and your ventilation is mostly or entirely though windows, your floor plans will have a lot of edges and corners to create more exterior wall for more windows. It’s most easily shown with an example. The 1880 General Post Office at the acute-angle intersection of Broadway and Park Row is a nice example. It was five stories tall but roughly the height of a modern eight-story building; its bulk combined with the repetitive facade elements of its Second Empire architecture made it an imposing sight from the south:

(Note that it was just as big when seen from the north, from within City Hall Park, but the north side of its roughly triangular plan was where the loading docks for mail vehicles were located, so there aren’t a lot of pictures looking that way.)

But when seen from above, the central light court breaks up that huge mass, so that the office on the upper floors could get windows for light and air, and the mail sorting room at the base could have a big skylight.