^^^ I think determining whether or not something is a part of a building is a much more philosophical question than that. Clearly a flagpole isn't a part of a building if its just tacked on at a later date, but what about the Milwaukee City Hall which was clearly designed to have an architectural spire that ended in a flag pole. So not only did the design of the building originally call for a flag pole, but the flag pole directly contributed to the intended use of the building by displaying the nation, state, and civic colors of the government within. So in that case, I think the flag pole is clearly a part of the building both physically and philosophically.
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would you have us cut the spires of the petronas towers just to preserve some meaningless ranking? to assuage the autistic fanboys of chicago?
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Great use of a mental disorder to insult other people, super mature... Anyhow, no one is saying that people should cut spires off of buildings, that is absurd. People are suggesting that there are better ways of measuring height.
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Originally Posted by kool maudit
no, they are design elements, to be considered as part of the building's overall structure, intent and appeal.
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Ok, so lets talk about the Antenna of the John Hancock Center in Chicago.
1. The antenna are clearly a part of the overall structure since the building was specifically designed to support them and all the structural loads associated with them. There are extensive structural accommodations building into the framing of the building to do this not to mention huge metal stubs protruding from the roof to take the load of antennae.
2. They are clearly intended by the original design. Not only was the structure heavily specialized to support them, but part of the financial reasoning for building one tall building instead of twin short ones was to put antenna on top, so the form of the building was heavily influenced by their presence. Also, JHC is a prime example of structural expressionism and functional "machine age" architecture. Thus, when we exam the aesthetic philosophy behind the design, we realize the building's form is almost entirely determined by function. Therefore, since the intended functions of the building were to house residents and offices, provide retail, and house antennae and broadcast equipment, the antenna are just as much a part of the aesthetic intent as the spire on the Chrysler building.
3. Finally, the appeal of the Hancock design is just as I said above, it is "High Tech" architecture, it is functional architecture, it is "structurally expressive" architecture. Thus the aesthetic appeal of the building is its high tech, functional, and structurally expressive look. Its hard to imagine that anyone doesn't believe that raw, exposed antennae and trusses don't look more "high tech", "functional", or "structurally expressive". If those terms are what you define as appealing, then the antennae on the JHC are absolutely integral to the design of the building.
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the spires make the building more beautiful. who cares about their relative proximity to the roof of another building thousands of miles away.
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Obviously "who cares" are those who are interested in comparing the heights and dimensions of buildings. I could frankly care less about how tall the Hancock building is. In my opinion it is one of the few masterpieces of supertall design and the pinnacle of the victory of function over decoration. I find the antenna on the Hancock beautiful, so I guess they should be considered comparable to spires.
Also, what happens to the height of a building when an antennae is no longer used? For example, say they building a 2000' tower in Chicago with lots of brand new antennae space on top right next to the Hancock (god forbid, I want JHC to stand on its own for a long time) and it renders the antennae there useless since a much better signal can be achieved from 2000' than 1500'. Now, especially in the case of JHC, those antennae are completely decorative, a reminder of the design aesthetic that made JHC so great. Does that convert them into spires? They certainly aren't antennae if they don't contain any electronic components... The petronas were completed with no spires longer than the Hancock was completed (it wasn't finished before the antennae were erected) before the antennae were added. So you can't say that they stay antennae because they were added after construction since other "spires" have been added long after completion and still count...
Having a different category for spires and antennae causes all sorts of problems for no benefit...
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