The Top 15 Buildings That Identify Your City:

[edluva]

^well, more broadly by it's populace - the culture that arises out of interactions bewteen people. buildings are just a skeleton for what really matters.

[RuFFy]

Edluva, I've got to disagree with you. Los Angeles has many famous buildings that immediately identify with the city and/or region. I wouldn't be able to say which are more recognizable than others, but I can tell you that when people see the Library Tower, they know they're looking at Los Angeles. When they see the Capital Records building, they know they're looking at Los Angeles. As a matter of fact, the Los Angeles skyline is televised so much that the skyline itself is an icon, not the biggest, but definitely recognizable. Among others are:

The Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum
Dodger Stadium
Staples Center
City Hall
Griffith Observatory
The Theme Restaurant at LAX
Queen Mary
Disneyland
Universal City Walk
The Hollywood and Highland complex including the Kodak, Gaumans Chinese Theater, The walk of fame, El Capitan Theater
Santa Monica Pier
Venice Beach
The Hollywood Sign
Anyone of our freeway interchanges
UCLA & USC Campus'
The Forum
Santa Anita Race Track
The Beverly Center
Glendale Galleria
Avenue of the Stars
Colorado Blvd and the Tournament of Roses Parade
The Rose Bowl
The Honda Center (Formerly Arrowhead Pond)
Angel Stadium

I could probably go on and on for another good minute. The point is there are many iconic places in Los Angeles that in one way or another many people around the globe can identify.

[mjs]

my list for Buffalo,

1Buffalo City Hall This art deco symbol par excellence, used often as a symbol for the city. Dietel & Wade , architect

2HSBC Center Can't ignore it's presence considering it's dominance over the city skyline. Skidmore Owings & Merrill, architect

3Buffalo Psychiatric Center This twin towered giant dominates the Buffalo State College neighborhood. Henry Hobsen Richardson, architect

4Gauranty Bldg though it's over shadowed by neighbors in height, it's perhaps the most important historically being one of the first skyscrapers by Lous Sullivan, architect

5Darwin D Martin House One of the finest examples of the prairee style by Frank Lloyd Wright, architect

6Kleinhans Music Hall Some consider this to be the last "great" building erected in Buffalo, 1938 by Eliel & Eero Saarinen, architect

7M&T plaza this 21 story tower was designed by Minoru Yamasaki, architect

8Liberty Building Can't ignore this tower designed by Alfred Bossom with it's twin statue of libertys atop it's twin pyramids

9Ellicott Square This building opened in 1896 as the world's "largest". The interior courtyard is phenomenal and the exterior lavishly decorated. Daniel Burnham, architect

10 Electric Tower It has an iconic "wedding cake" look, Esenwien & Johnson, architect

11 buffalo savings Bank(now M&T Center) Has an Iconic gold dome, Green & Wicks, architect

12 shea's Buffalo Theater Can't ignore the iconic "Buffalo" sign anchoring the city's theater district and it's interior is spectacular, George Rapp, architect

13 Central Terminal The symbol of Buffalo's importance as a rail center second to Chicago in the 30's and 40's. Fellheimer and Wagner, architect

14 Statler Towers The once hotel giant that shares prominence on Niagara Square near City Hall and was the flagship 1,000 room hotel of the Statler chain. George B. Post and sons, architect

15 Connecticut Street Armory 2nd largest armory in NY State and one of the largest in the country

[PuyoPiyo]

For my city, Vancouver, Washington:

*Interstate Bridge.
*Smith Tower.
*Bank of America Building.
*Fort Vancouver.
*Vancouvercenter.
*Riverview Tower.

That's all I can think of.. Other buildings are not as attractive as identify our city.

[Snoshredder21]

Newark, NJ

1. Prudential Center
2. Prudential Plaza Building
3. National Newark Building
4. Gateway Plaza
5. Cathedral of the Sacred Heart
6. 1180 Raymond Blvd.
7. City Hall
8. PSE&G Building
9. One Newark Center
10. NJ School of Architecture
11. Military Park Building
12. UMDNJ Building
13. IDT Building
14. Verizon Building
15. Blue Cross/NJT Buildings

yea almost every building u see in the skyline hah

[jonnybowkd]

London:

1. Big Ben And Houses Of Parliament
2. London Eye
3. Tower Bridge
4. Tower Of London
5. St Pauls Cathedral
6. The Gherkin
7. Westminster Abbey
8. Canary Wharf
9. Trafalgar Square
10. British Library
11. St Pancras Station
12. Natural History Museum
13. Tower 42
14. Tate Modern
15. Globe Theatre

[nygirl1]

The London eye is a building? Tower Bridge is a building? Canary Wharf is 1 building? Trafalgar square is a building too???? .............

I'll go:

1. Empire State= The king of the skyline
2. Chrysler= The Queen of the skyline
3. Flatiron= The king of its kind
4. 1 Times Square= Covered in LED screens and ads
5. Citycorp= The sloped roof and white box on stilts
6. 30 Rock = The pinnacle of Rockefeller Center
7. W.C. Grace= The white box of Bryant Park
8. 40 Wall= My favorite downtown building
9. Plaza Hotel= The storied hotel at Central Park South
10. Met Life= Combined with the Helmsley and the evil guard of Park Avenue
11. Woolworth Building= The Cathedral of Commerce
12. Hearst Magazine Tower= Fosters 8th avenue gem
13. Time Warner Center= Prominent twin towered glass building in North West Midtown
14. Bloomberg Building = Prominent Glass tapering box
15. Trump World Tower= Prominent black box

I'd go on but you only asked for 15.

[Exodus]

Originally Posted by LivingIn622

Detroit.
Guardian building
Penobscot building 48 storys 580ft
Ren Cen 73 storys 730ft
Fisher building 420 ft
Comerica Tower 619 ft.

Let me help you out here.

Guardian Bldg. - 40 storys & 495 or 496 ft. , depending on the resource.

Penobscot Bldg. - 47 storys & 566 ft. to the roof, 664 ft. including the tower.

Ren. Cen. Marriott Hotel - 73 storys & 721 ft. on Jefferson Ave. & 748 ft. on Atwater St.

Comerica Tower/One Detroit Center - 43 storys & 620 ft. , depending on the resource.

On a side note, I think The Penobscot Bldg. should be ranked as the 2nd tallest in Detroit, because the tower is part of the actual skeletal structure of the bldg. As far as I know it isn't that mudh different than the spire on The ESB, except the tower on the Penobscot Bldg. doesn't have exterior cladding.

[Exodus]

Originally Posted by josh white

For Calgary these would be my choices:



2. Petro Canada Centre

Reminds me of Covington, Ky.

[KevinFromTexas]

For Austin:

1 - State Capitol - 311 feet - 4 floors - 1888
2 - University of Texas Tower 307 feet - 29 floors - 1937
3 - Governor's Mansion - 2 floors - 1856
4 - Frost Bank Tower - 515 feet - 33 floors - 2004
5 - French Legation - 1 floor - 1840 (This is the oldest remaining building in the city).
6 - Driskill Hotel - 4 floors - 1886
7 - Darrell K. Royal Texas Memorial Stadium - 1924 The stadium is under renovation adding about 5,000 new seats. Once complete it'll seat between 92,000 to 95,000 fans. Future expansion plans may push it to 115,000 seats, with room for 122,000 fans.
8 - Saint Edwards University Main Building - 4 floors - 1889
9 - Scholz Bier Garten - Built in 1866, it's the oldest business in Austin and still occupies the same location.
10 - Scarbrough Building - 8 floors - 1911 - This was Austin's first steel skyscraper.
11 - Paramount Theatre - 2 floors - 1915
12 - Littlefield Building - 136 feet - 9 floors - 1912 - Austin's 2nd steel skyscraper.
13 - The Oasis on Lake Travis - 4th largest restaurant in the US with seating for over 2,000. The restaurant sits atop a 450 foot cliff overlooking the lake with 40 decks.
14 - LBJ Library & Presidential Museum - 10 floors - 1974. Over 1 million people visit the library every year.
15 - Frank Erwin Center - 1977 - Aka "The Super Drum". This is where UT plays basketball.

[Junctionist]

For Toronto:

1. CN Tower (John Andrews, WZMH Architects)


2. New City Hall (Viljo Revell)


3.Gooderham Building (David Roberts Jr.)


4. Old City Hall (E.J. Lennox)


5. Toronto Dominion Centre (Mies van der Rohe)


6. Maple Leaf Gardens (Ross and MacDonald)


7. University College at the University of Toronto (Frederic Cumberland and William G. Storm)


8. Royal Ontario Museum -ROM- (Pearson and Darling, with first addition by Chapman and Oxley and newest addition by Daniel Libeskind)


9. OCAD Sharp Centre for Design (Will Alsop)


10. Ontario Place (Eberhard Zeidler)


11. Robarts Library (Mathers and Haldenby)


12. Gooderham and Worts Distillery


13. Casa Loma (E.J. Lennox)


14. Scotia Plaza (Mathers and Haldenby, 68 storey tower by WZMH Architects) at left


15. Fairmont Royal York (Ross and Macdonald)


Special mention: First Canadian Place (not very iconic, but the tallest office building), Royal Bank Plaza (distinctive 24 karat gold tinted glass facade), Union Station, Honest Ed's, and the CHUM building.

Edit: Under Construction or Proposed buildings shouldn't count. But in the future, 1 Bloor East and the Gehry AGO Project might make their way into this kind of list.

[LivingIn622]

Originally Posted by Exodus

.



On a side note, I think The Penobscot Bldg. should be ranked as the 2nd tallest in Detroit, because the tower is part of the actual skeletal structure of the bldg. As far as I know it isn't that mudh different than the spire on The ESB, except the tower on the Penobscot Bldg. doesn't have exterior cladding.

Comerica tower is clearly taller.

[Quabbin]

Originally Posted by Dac150

What buildings in your city are ones that people look at and automatically know where they are? Name the top 15.

New York
1. Empire State Building and former WTC
2. Chrysler Building
3. 1 Times Square
4. Rockafeller Center
5. United Nations
6. Citigroup Center
7. Metlife Building
8. 40 Wall Street
9. Woolworth Building
10. 1 Worldwide Plaza
11. 1 Astor Plaza
12. Conde Nast Building
13. World Financial Center
14. Solow Building
15. 70 Pine Street

I doubt many people would recognize anything on your list after number 9--maybe the WFC and Conde Nast, the latter only because it's plastered with electric signs, like everything else in Times Sq. And, as someone else said, Flatiron building is very prominent in people's mental maps and should be on the list. Speaking of Madison Square, did you mean that Met Life building or the one formerly known as Pan Am? Another point: even for NY this is a very skyscraper-biased list. What about Grand central Terminal, the Plaza Hotel, the Dakota apartments, the Ansonia (74th & B'way), City Hall? What about St Patrick's Cathedral or the N Y Stock Exchange or Trinity Church or Riverside Church or Grant's Tomb? Doesn't Brooklyn Bridge qualify? Or the arch in Washington Square?

As a Boston fan, I'd make this list:
1. State House
2. Prudential tower
3. Faneuil Hall
4. City Hall
5. new Hancock Tower
6. Custom House Tower
7. Old State House
8. Fenway Park
9. Park Street Church
10. Paul Revere House
11. Old North Church
12. Trinity Church/Boston Public Library/Copley Plaza Hotel
13. Taj Hotel (but known to generations as the Ritz)
14. painted gas tanks on the S. E. Expressway
15. Bunker Hill Monument

My number 14 implies that the modern city is mostly recognizable to people as drivers rather than pedestrians and the familiar landmarks are thus in many cases something of little architectural interest glimpsed every day from the highway. Like the hotel over the turnpike in Newton Corner or the Sheraton Tara-on-the-Turnpike in Framingham. On the Capital Beltway there's that fantastic Mormon temple between Silver Spring and Chevy Chase. How many people in Atlanta know the city-center landmarks someone listed as well as ordinary structures everyone sees from the freeway?

[pico44]

Ok, a couple people have tried New York and failed (NYGirl was very close). I guess it's up to me to come up with the definitive list.

1. Empire State Building
2. New York Stock Excange
3. Times Square Building
4. Chrysler Building
5. United Nations
6. Carnegie Hall
7. Grand Central Terminal
8. Guggenheim
9. Flatiron Building
10. Plaza Hotel
11. Woolworth Tower
12. 30 Rockefeller
13. Metropolitan Museum of Art
14. Citibank Building
15. Metropolitan Opera House
16. MOMA
17. Lever House
18. St Patricks Cathedral
19. The Dakota
20. MetLife (formerly PanAm)
21. NY Public Library
22. Seagram Tower
23. Waldorf Astoria

I could go on and on. It's embarrassing really. And that isn't even counting bridges and statues.

[Dac150]

Quabbin..............

I meant skyscrapers when I made the thread, but it took off as buildings. My mistake. No point in changing it now though.

And regarding the buildings on my list, people may not know of them (after 9)by name, but if they just saw the building itself, they'd think New York.

The Metlife on my list is in regards to the former PanAm.

And no, Grant's Tomb, The Brooklyn Bridge, Washington Sq. Monument do not qualify because they are not buildings. Did I really need to tell you that?

[Dac150]

Pico, that list is pretty good, but I would hope MetLife (PanAm) is more well known than Seagram.

[pico44]

Originally Posted by Dac150

Pico, that list is pretty good, but I would hope MetLife (PanAm) is more well known than Seagram.

You may very well be right. In fact, I might go back and switch them--good point.

[Quabbin]

Dac150..... It's good you got so many responses, helped to clarify the thinking, criteria, etc. Seems you didn't mean someone would know where they are locationally, just know it as a New York building vs. some other city. Also wasn't clear whether you meant familiar to anyone or just residents of that city. Most posters on this thread seemed to assume it meant residents of the city in question--e.g., Buffalo, Newark, Austin--buildings no one outside those cities would likely recognize. NY is exceptional among North American cities in having buildings people around the world would recognize as New York buildings. And buildings of course are not unoccupied structures, only in the case of New York, and even more S. F., a bridge is probably more famous than most buildings you could name so it seems at least worth mentioning. I like the idea of buildings that tell you where you are specifically--not just in NYC but up in Morningside Heights or way downtown or in Greenwich Village, etc. Just New York-- ok so far as it goes but so much more evocative if it conjures up a particular locale with its feel, sounds, memories... And if it were a list of buildings familiar to residents, wouldn't we have at least a few outer borough buildings/structures? Not just Yankee Stadium (ugh) but the Unisphere in flushing meadows, something in Brooklyn (isn't there one single building in that famous borough other than the bridge to New York that would make a list? Maybe the Steeplechase Park parachute jump--you see, buildings alone aren't enough.)

[Dac150]

Originally Posted by Quabbin

Dac150..... It's good you got so many responses, helped to clarify the thinking, criteria, etc. Seems you didn't mean someone would know where they are locationally, just know it as a New York building vs. some other city. Also wasn't clear whether you meant familiar to anyone or just residents of that city. Most posters on this thread seemed to assume it meant residents of the city in question--e.g., Buffalo, Newark, Austin--buildings no one outside those cities would likely recognize. NY is exceptional among North American cities in having buildings people around the world would recognize as New York buildings. And buildings of course are not unoccupied structures, only in the case of New York, and even more S. F., a bridge is probably more famous than most buildings you could name so it seems at least worth mentioning. I like the idea of buildings that tell you where you are specifically--not just in NYC but up in Morningside Heights or way downtown or in Greenwich Village, etc. Just New York-- ok so far as it goes but so much more evocative if it conjures up a particular locale with its feel, sounds, memories... And if it were a list of buildings familiar to residents, wouldn't we have at least a few outer borough buildings/structures? Not just Yankee Stadium (ugh) but the Unisphere in flushing meadows, something in Brooklyn (isn't there one single building in that famous borough other than the bridge to New York that would make a list? Maybe the Steeplechase Park parachute jump--you see, buildings alone aren't enough.)

Yes, what you are saying is true in regards to the boroughs, being that all five of them make up New York City. Like I said, I made this thread for buildings only, but if it were geared towards structures, than my list for New York would be:

1. Empire State Building
2. Statue of Liberty
3. Brooklyn Bridge
4. Chrysler Building
5. Grand Central Terminal
6. 1 Times Square
7. Yankee Stadium
8. NYSE
9. The Lincoln Tunnel
10. Rockefellar Center
11. The MetLife Building (PanAm)
12. The George Washington Bridge
13. The Worlds Fair Unisphere
14. The Washington Square Arch
15. The Manhattan Bridge
16. United Nations
17. Radio City Music Hall
18. Carnagie Hall
19. Lincoln Center
20. The Plaza Hotel
21. The Guggenheim
22. Museum of Natural History
23. The Citicorp Center
24. The Flatiron Building
25. MoMA
26. The Metropolitain Opera House
27. The Waldorf Astoria
28. Madison Square Garden
29. JFK Airport
30. St. Patricks
31. The Holland Tunnel
32. The Woolworth Building
33. The 59th Street Bridge
34. 40 Wall Street (Trump Bldg.)
35. 70 Pine Street (American Intl.)
I can go on forever.