Skylines: Paris vs. Houston

[New Brisavoine]

Paris vs. Houston. Courtesy of the French forumer Substructure at Skyscrapercity. Note that there is no photo manipulation whatsoever. These are real pictures of the two cities.

[Dan Denson]

I don't know the Paris skyline very well (looks great, though), but the there are other angles of the Houston skyline that show it to be more massive than the photo shown in the post.

[ady26]

My vote goes to...Paris

[TXLove]

Whoa those look so simular.... That Houston photo seems dated though because One Park Place isn't there or Hess tower which is under contruction would be visible from that angle! My vote hometown bias HOUSTON!

[Troyeth]

I think the more difficult question is which skyline is less visually boring.

[urbanlife]

plus Paris's skyline sits on the edge of the city and from what I have heard is very corporate and boring...besides, who wants to see a collection of office buildings in Paris?

[Troyeth]

Not me.

These types of comparisons continually reaffirm my core belief that skyscrapers are nothing to truly write home about. It is about the cities in which they are located!

[Minato Ku]

Originally Posted by urbanlife

besides, who wants to see a collection of office buildings in Paris?

Paris is full of office buildings with over 500 million sq ft.
The only city with more offices in the whole north and south american continents is New York.
La Defense is only a small part of this huge amount. (7%)

[urbanlife]

Originally Posted by Minato Ku

Paris is full of office buildings with over 500 million sq ft.
The only city with more offices in the whole north and south american continents is New York.
La Defense is only a small part of this huge amount. (7%)

I should rephrase that, I mean office towers, not buildings in general.

[Minato Ku]

Yeh I understood but many people tends to confuse office with skyscrapers or glass building and in Paris many office building are 19th and 20th century building or at least the facade (facadism is really common in Paris).

Anyway Paris needs more office space and also needs to rebuild a large part of its stock but inside the well served by transportation district the place lacks.
You don't have many other choise to build taller, so I think that in future we will see many new skyscrapers outside la Defense, especially in district Montparnasse, Issy les Moulineaux, Bercy...

Tourists will maybe be upset but the industries that need office space are much more important for our economy, employ far more people than tourism related industries.

[Bailey]

Originally Posted by urbanlife

plus Paris's skyline sits on the edge of the city and from what I have heard is very corporate and boring...besides, who wants to see a collection of office buildings in Paris?

Houston also has two other rather large clusters of buildings so I'm not sure if this is true for Paris.

[VivaLFuego]

Not too suprising - both business districts that only took on something resembling their current form in the period from the mid-1970s to present, so it's not surprising the architecture would be very similar.

Originally Posted by Dan Denson

I don't know the Paris skyline very well (looks great, though), but the there are other angles of the Houston skyline that show it to be more massive than the photo shown in the post.

Largely a function of whether a viewpoint is aligned to DT Houston's street grid. The skyline doesn't look as thick if there are perfectly spaced gaps between buildings, from certain diagonals it looks like a solid mass of built density.

[Metro Matt]

Not seeing the resemblance, sorry.

Now Houston & LA...

[SLO]

Theres something wrong with the scale, while the clusters look similar, the tallest Houston buildings are much taller than the tallest Paris buildings.

I agree on the skyscraper context in Paris though, its not that exciting. Interesting, but not exciting.

[BnaBreaker]

The skyline of Paris is the least impressive thing about the city.

[LMich]

I'm not sure if this thread is even within the rules. With that said, there is something definitely off in the scaling of the two. The Paris shot is clearly shot closer or zoomed in, as there is not currently anything that even gets to close to 1,000 in La Defense.

BTW, I'm definitely seeing a resemblence if only a superficial one in the massing of the skylines.

[Double L]

These are my favorite shots of the Houston skyline.



http://www.millairexp.com/main.html



http://www.indie-music.com/modules.p...ticle&sid=5460

[toyota74]

What about the rest of the paris skyline seen in this pic miles
away from la defence....maybe it should be houstonvs. la'defence..

[New Brisavoine]

^^Sure. But I think Substructure wanted to highlight the striking resemblance between Houston and Paris from that angle.

Talking about wide Paris panoramas, I like these two.

Here Paris as seen from the Rungis wholesale food market in the southern inner suburbs. The Eiffel Tower (to the right of the center) stands 13.0 km (8.0 miles) from where the photographer stood.

(picture from I don't know where)

Here Paris as seen from the eastern suburb of Noisy-le-Grand. The tiny Eiffel Tower (slightly to the left of the center) stands 21.5 km (13.4 miles) from where the photographer stood.

(picture from survoldefrance.fr)

[jowens]

Originally Posted by LMich

there is something definitely off in the scaling of the two. The Paris shot is clearly shot closer or zoomed in, as there is not currently anything that even gets to close to 1,000 in La Defense.

BTW, I'm definitely seeing a resemblence if only a superficial one in the massing of the skylines.

Definately agree................the tallest in Paris is under construction and is in the 780' range.