Are skyscraper cities becoming---bleh?

[mhays]

They're often behind barren windswept plazas.

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

Yeah, skyscrapers are pretty fucking played out.

I'm all about strip malls and stand alone drive-thru fast food restaurants these days.

Also, little caesars makes really yummy pizza!

[CaliNative]

Originally Posted by mhays

Some nice ones, and some basic international-style boxes.

The boom has greatly added to the intensity level of many cities. That's the big thing.

The best skyscrapers in Chitown & NYC aren't the tallest. The 1910s-1920s-1930s neo gothics & art decos are the ones you remember. Woolworth. Chrysler. Empire State. Tribune. Opera Tower. Board of Trade. etc. They don't make them like they used to, with a few exceptions. I also agree with some of the comments that large empty plazas and parking podiums are not good for urbanity. Plazas with actual shops & kiosks & activity might work. But parking podiums above street level are 99% bad. Zoning mandates plazas & parking spaces in many cities. In L.A., for example, the ratio of building lot area to the sq. ft. of a building is something like 10/1 unless there is a waiver or purchased offset from an adjacent parcel (like that used to build U.S. Bank Tower). Density should be encouraged in the heart of downtown areas. Most of all, bring activity to the street & discourage parking podiums & vacant plazas.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by CaliNative

The best skyscrapers in Chitown & NYC aren't the tallest. The 1910s-1920s-1930s neo gothics & art decos are the ones you remember. Woolworth. Chrysler. Empire State. Tribune. Opera Tower. Board of Trade. etc.

chicago has a lot of great pre-war towers too, but it's terribly silly in my mind to race one era against each other. more than any one building, or even any one era of buildings, the true magic of a skyline like chicago's is found in the tapestry created by weaving the many architectural masterpieces, and even many of the more mundane background buildings, from all these different time periods and style genres together.

the whole is greater than the sum of it's parts.


source: https://anotherangle.eu/posts/adler-...icago-skyline/

[niwell]

Strangely enough I think some of the modernist towers in Chicago with sweeping plazas actually have a better street presence than the standard new River North podium parking block with some retail.

[10023]

^ this is correct.

Originally Posted by maru2501

I actually understand the point of this thread, which maybe puts me in the minority

However, quantity is still good, even though smaller cities think they are catching up by building one or three or six new buildings

the new real city currency is density and urban fabric and entertainment options

Chicago no longer has the world's tallest building or one in the top ten, but it is many many times a better city than it was in 1982, sorry grit fans

Grit is hugely overrated. What you want is good bones.

[skyscraperpage17]

Originally Posted by Tom In Chicago

This is a stupid question that reads like childish click-bait. . . please stop posting on this forum. . . thanks. . .

. . .

[Pedestrian]

Hollywood’s Obsession With Skyscrapers
There’s no Oscar for ‘best building,’ but that hasn’t stopped filmmakers from placing their characters in ever more luxurious high-rises
By Katy McLaughlin
March 1, 2018 10:33 a.m. ET

When Hollywood production designer Nelson Coates had to create a high-rise penthouse for the handsome, fetishist, billionaire title character in the “Fifty Shades of Grey” films, the third of which was released last month, there was no question which Seattle building he would live in.

It had to be Escala, the real 31-story downtown Seattle high-rise that is named in the books and films. Mr. Coates carefully studied Escala’s floor plans and designed a set that re-created for the latest two films the best the building has to offer: 5,200-square-feet of space, floor-to-ceiling windows and sweeping views. The films introduce the building with a huge glowing rooftop sign. (That part is movie magic; no such sign exists.) A penthouse the size of the fictional Christian Grey’s sold for $8 million in November 2016.

On Oscar night March 4, there will be no award for “best building,” but maybe there ought to be. Hollywood has long been fascinated by skyscrapers, pitting them against monsters like “King Kong,” using them to signify modernism and post-war progress in “The Fountainhead,” and setting them alight in action movies like “The Towering Inferno” and “Die Hard.” These office buildings represented the apex of capitalism, ambition and hubris.

The Escala

https://www.wsj.com/articles/hollywo...s&page=1&pos=3

[cannedairspray]

Originally Posted by hauntedheadnc

I'm not sure it's that so much as it the way that anything mass produced won't hold the appeal of a handcrafted work of art. Tall buildings used to be art because architecture used to be art. Now though, modern architecture is mostly about who can come up with a new set of twists and bulges, not unlike the way that Star Trek always has folks sitting around and thinking hard about how to give this alien race an entirely new set of forehead bulges to set them apart from that alien race. Meanwhile, thousands and thousands of these placeless, interchangeable and indistinguishable boxes and bulges are going up around the world.

I think the way to sum it up best is to consider Charlotte, easily the most mediocre major city in America. Downtown Charlotte is an anonymous mass of glass and steel, beige EIFS, and blank walls and parking decks. There is next to no history, and the entire city is the most aggressively flavorless place I have ever seen. Their blandness is, in fact, a large part of their identity. Compare this to pretty much any lively city with a wealth of historic architecture. Even compare it to someplace with little in the way of tall buildings, like Savannah, if you like. Savannah is the city as art and back in the day, that was the mindset behind all architecture up to and including tall buildings. Cities were handcrafted works of art because their buildings were handcrafted works of art. Used to, we built Savannahs. Now we build Charlottes.

I know this is a gross generalization, but really... This is a building. This is art. This calls itself a building, but it's really a box wearing Star Trek makeup.

Isn't the point of "form follows function" that the "shape of building or object should primarily relate to its intended function or purpose"? By the same token, shouldn't the shape of a city- including and specific to its verticality or lack thereof- primarily relate to its function or purpose?

I find it rather hypocritical to understand that a buildings' form should follow its function but suddenly scoff at and attempt to rebuke a city's form following its function.

An argument about the quality of buildings is one thing. "Skyscrapers being bleh" is another, and frankly quite hypocritical for a group of folks so enamored with Sullivan.

[the urban politician]

..

[mhays]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

https://www.wsj.com/articles/hollywo...s&page=1&pos=3

Oh, Escala. Across the alley to the right, two separate developers have 1/3-acre portions of the same block, and each plans a 550' tower, one a hotel/residential and the other all-residential. The Escala residents are going nuts over this, and using every technique in the book against it. Basically this is about challenging whether the projects are following codes, and over the minor variances projects typically want. Escala residents are the enemy of what will probably end up a great block. PS, no parking podiums of course.

Agreed on your post CaliNative.

[jtown,man]

Oh how I love SSP. You all bitch and complain these new towers are created just for the rich and then turn around and complain about how cheap the material these towers are made of. Imagine if they were made with incredible materials, it would be even *more* expensive.

[CaliNative]

Originally Posted by mhays

Oh, Escala. Across the alley to the right, two separate developers have 1/3-acre portions of the same block, and each plans a 550' tower, one a hotel/residential and the other all-residential. The Escala residents are going nuts over this, and using every technique in the book against it. Basically this is about challenging whether the projects are following codes, and over the minor variances projects typically want. Escala residents are the enemy of what will probably end up a great block. PS, no parking podiums of course.

Agreed on your post CaliNative.

<Thanks. I didn't mean to say I only like neo-gothics & art decos. Well designed modernist towers too. I like the diversity of ages and styles in historical skyscraper burgs like NYC & Chicago. Mix the styles. Gehry's "Fred and Ginger" dancing towers in old Prague works. I don't care much for artificial places with big empty plazas and parking podiums and very tall towers plunked in the middle of boring concrete plazas with nary a tree or bench for fear a homeless person might sit. Ponder this--Jack London was homeless. Jesus was homeless. Moses & the wandering Israelites too. All kinds of interesting people have been homeless at one time or another. Activity & busy streetscapes & hot dog stands & kiosks, that's the ticket! Honesty. Not faux skyscraper towns filled with half empty supertalls built to show how important you are and how much money you have. Towers built to be worked in and lived in by the people of the city, not just bought by billionaires for investments and never lived in. No no no. Real cities, diversity of buildings & people, activity, yes yes yes. REAL CITIES. NOT FAKE. Busy cities with towers where the working people and poets and artists live, along with the billionaires. Cities for all. Why not Utopia?

[10023]

Originally Posted by isaidso

London isn't typically viewed as a skyscraper city, period. Maybe in 20-30 years it will become part of the conversation but it certainly isn't today... not outside of Europe any way.

And yet there are probably more buildings over 300-400 feet tall in London than in any US city outside of NYC, Chicago and Miami.

[dc_denizen]

skyscrapers (and lots of midrises/lowrises) are helping to replace the commercial architecture torn down and never rebuilt in many american cities during the urban renewal era. look at denver...those empty lots from the 'skyline plan' era are finally being filled, same in many other smaller scale cities like des moines, austin, nashville, etc.

I don't think filling in the gaps eliminates character of these cities.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by IrishIllini

Skyscrapers today are generally more generic, I feel. A lot of blue glass boxes and clunky, blank-walled podiums.

Originally Posted by hauntedheadnc

I think the way to sum it up best is to consider Charlotte, easily the most mediocre major city in America. Downtown Charlotte is an anonymous mass of glass and steel, beige EIFS, and blank walls and parking decks. There is next to no history, and the entire city is the most aggressively flavorless place I have ever seen.

Originally Posted by hauntedheadnc

Used to, we built Savannahs. Now we build Charlottes.

My sentiments exactly. I was really surprised (disappointed) by Charlotte, everything's new and nondescript (and there were no pedestrians downtown, so it felt sterile).

Some of the new supertalls in Manhattan are pretty interesting, though. It's just that developers seem to have been able to get away with crap so easily for the past few decades that there's no need to bother to make your building count architecturally... except maybe in places like Manhattan, where costs are extreme and buyers can afford to be picky.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

chicago has a lot of great pre-war towers too, but it's terribly silly in my mind to race one era against each other. more than any one building, or even any one era of buildings, the true magic of a skyline like chicago's is found in the tapestry created by weaving the many architectural masterpieces, and even many of the more mundane background buildings, from all these different time periods and style genres together.

the whole is greater than the sum of it's parts.


source: https://anotherangle.eu/posts/adler-...icago-skyline/

There can be interesting, quality architecture from all eras, I agree with you. I really like the Sears tower, Aon tower, and John Hancock building. But there's a huge red one (way too large, big square box, and horrible color) that's always pretty visible/prominent that I loathe, though. Some of the 15 tallest in Chicago are quite bad. I also don't like that truncated one (that looks like it was chopped at 45 degrees) that's super visible from the lake.

Trump tower is a bit meh. I've seen worse (nondescript glass tower from that era), but it's still pretty bland.

Ideally, all the nicest buildings from all eras would be kept over the next decades, and the bad ones could make way for new cool buildings representing their eras. This would make the tapestry even better. Normally I would expect the City's landmarking and project greenlighting processes to be working exactly in that direction...

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

agree to disagree.

i'm extremely glad that chicago didn't miss out on the '60s/'70s tower boom.

i'm extremely glad that chicago's skyline is graced by all 10 of those mid-century gems shown above. they're all wonderful.

Well now that I've read more of the thread I guess we disagree on some things

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally Posted by jtown,man

Oh how I love SSP. You all bitch and complain these new towers are created just for the rich and then turn around and complain about how cheap the material these towers are made of. Imagine if they were made with incredible materials, it would be even *more* expensive.

But that's not true.

[Eightball]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

chicago has a lot of great pre-war towers too, but it's terribly silly in my mind to race one era against each other. more than any one building, or even any one era of buildings, the true magic of a skyline like chicago's is found in the tapestry created by weaving the many architectural masterpieces, and even many of the more mundane background buildings, from all these different time periods and style genres together.

the whole is greater than the sum of it's parts.


source: https://anotherangle.eu/posts/adler-...icago-skyline/

The flatness of the terrain makes this rather blah, sorry. Doesn't hold a candle to SF.

The modernist buildings posted earlier were badass tho!