Does the article say that large buildings are more expensive to heat? It seemed to me its point was that other energy uses far exceed the costs of heating.

Furthermore these scaling laws don't necessarily hold when there is a paradigm difference. E.g. you don't worry about scaling laws when comparing a building that can be lighted mostly (or entirely) from natural sources to one that can't; in fact the smaller scale is more efficient from this perspective.

Heating isn't the only thing using energy.

"Many office buildings had window accomodating H-, T-, and L-shaped footprints to encourage natural lighting, ventilation, and cooling"

All that is mechanical in big square blobs.

Also, at the scale of large office buildings, and given that those more slender buildings would have an optimal orientation, I am not sure building shape matters that much in heating costs.

The article also states "While heating was the main energy use in pre-1950s office buildings, today cooling, lighting and electronic equipment (all operated by electricity), use 70% of all energy on-site.", but that's not a strong argument, as slender buildings would have the electronic equipment, too.

Perhaps more expensive to cool? I wonder if large office buildings have to be cooled year round.

Yes, typically large buildings are cooled year round, especially when they are cubic (not sure how this effects tall, skinny skyscrapers). Usually when you see "smoke" coming from the top of a building in the dead of winter, that's from the cooling units. Much heat does come electronics, lighting, humans, but there are still heating units to have precision control as temperature will not necessarily distribute evenly.

There are, as one might guess, a lot of factors at play and no universal solutions. Certainly the pure form office buildings of the International Style are almost completely naïve to these considerations.

The biggest tragedy is the air controlled paradigm of hvac. Air is so not dense relative to water! Doesn't hold energy and very hard to push around (push a column of air up 20, 50, 100 stories? Not happening). This is directly related to the early success of the Carrier ac company.

The biggest problem is not heating, but cooling. Ironically, on very cold days that design does not keep heat very well. From the article:

"The US Modernist office building, a cube with a steel skeleton and glass curtain walls, is essentially a massive greenhouse that would be unbearable for most of the year without artificial cooling. Because glazed façades don't insulate well, energy use for heating is also high."

And to add insult to injury, there's lighting. Yay for the cube farm!!!

"In spite of all the glass, most US office buildings require artificial lighting throughout the day because many office workers are too far from a window to receive enough natural light."

My personal psychology: I've been working in cube farms for so long, that the constant fluorescent light level is a cue that means "you're in work mode." I don't think I would like only natural light at work. For example, a dark overcast day would make me sleepy and lazy.

Conversely, at home it's natural, varying light all the time, until night fall. It's my cue for "you're at home and can pursue whatever interests you. Or take a nap"

People get used to whatever is normal for them, and then resent change.

I am pretty sure your great-grandfather would have felt depressed after spending an whole afternoon in a flourescent lited room.