[Kanto]

Originally Posted by JayPro

IMHO;

As one who has never really understood the *aesthetic* need for exterior cross-bracing, I can suffer this ostensible re-design.

That said, there must be a lot of buildings that incorporate an X-pattern or the like into their facades without the need for additional steel (IIRC Dallas' Renaissance Tower pulls this off rather nicely). Perhaps, then, something could be done to emulate the scrapped design feature along these lines.

Somehow, I think that the building's verticality is slightly enhanced with this latest iteration. It's just that to me, the X's have always looked a wee bit intrusive. I just hope that the spandrel panelling (?) is prominent enough to properly integrate the zig-zags on the setbacks with everything else.

Edit: Cost-cutting at the expense of architectural nirvana is indeed a screaming, foaming bitch. But in all frankness, I dare to ask whether we rather have an arhitecturally diluted supertall...or none at all? If this measure was taken solely to expedite the tenant hunting process (and IMO it *was*), I for one...and maybe the *only* one...understand the motive, albeit most grudgingly.

I truly empathize with those of you who see this as an irreversible indignity to a neo-Gotham-like monument; but might I suggest that what we see as of *right now* might not equal what we ultimately get? I'm thinking about/hoping for what they did with the aforementioned Dallas building, which BTW, is *not* what was first built (completion in '74; reclad, exterior facade lighting et al in '86). We shall see.

I offer these words in the spirit of civil dialogue, fully aware that I appear to be in the extreme minority on this issue.

But you aren't the only one. I too think the design is better off without the bracing