Wasn't implying they did. It was more that if it was a hypothetical choice between a downtown with nice spikes, but large gaps inbetween, or a consistent canyon with smaller (but definitely still need some) height deviations I would probably choose the latter.

^ ok, whatever floats your boat.

i was just pointing out that you can have your cake and eat it too.

you can have manhattan!!! :cheers:

That's why Manahattan never gets old. Whether you like the current or new aesthetic, it will continually evolve. Maybe in 50 years Billionaire's row will be at tabletop height and the next generation will be arguing whether the 600m towers are too tall and thin!

These super expensive condos are having a lot of trouble. That's actually an understatement. Billionaire's Row is one of the worst performing areas for condo sales in the entire city of New York. They are struggling in what may be the best environment for the very high net worth people that we've seen since before the Great Depression. If there is a recession soon, we might see some of these super high-end condo developers go bankrupt as a result.

I suspect a lot of the fundamentals behind developers catering to the ultra high-end market in Manhattan was based on shady money from overseas. After the 2016 election, the Obama admin slapped a bunch of sanctions on Russian oligarchs that effectively froze them out of the U.S. financial system, and Russian oligarchs were also a key demo for ultra high-end Manhattan real estate. There was also a lot of increased scrutiny on shady money filtering in from other parts of the world as well. This is probably a big reason why the current president, himself a Manhattan real estate developer, is so eager to roll back Obama era Russian sanctions.

for sure, miami has the mass, it just needs to get a lot more "spikey" before it truly enters the skyline big leagues of north america (NYC, chicago , and toronto).

and it has like a dozen supertall proposals on the drawing boards, but so...... much...... waiting......

when?

WHEN?

No, those are office buildings not mostly unoccupied monuments to wealth inequality and everything wrong with capitalism in the US. It is jarring, but there are a few gems among the uglies like that shop tower.

Yeah, there are, theoretically, other options. Practically, probably no. Most U.S. highrises are towers on podiums. NYC isn't really a podium town because parking is (generally speaking) forbidden and there are no backsides of buildings (no alleys and buildings are built cheek-by-jowl).

In NYC, you're gonna get a lot-filling building. Building size is strictly a function of floor area ratio. You can't build bigger and no one builds less than the max allowed. So the question is whether you prefer shorter, wider towers, or taller thinner towers. I generally prefer the latter because it preserves street-level vitality and historic buildings. 57th Street still has delis and tiny historic buildings, in part because the new tower footprints are tiny.

Sure, building as high as humanly possible on often tight sites is a classic Manhattanism - and the results are certainly an impressive structural feat, to be sure. But you still ultimately need to consider height:width ratio as an aesthetic judgement. And while I actually like skinny towers, there's a point at which they start to look like gawky, weirdly anorexic twigs teetering above the skyline.




The supertalls of West 57th aren't built to that height for economic viability under any usual circumstances though. The cost of construction relative to floorspace is extremely inefficient and is only made viable by being able to market them to the ultra-rich at a premium on the basis of being really, really tall.

Otherwise, if we're talking about more typical infill buildings I agree with you - better to go thin and tall(ish) than short and squat.

Hopefully next decade. Only really need two signature ones.

Couldn’t find a better picture but I honestly think this was the best rendition of NY’s skyline, besides the 1930s. There was balance and girth like I mentioned before.

https://live.staticflickr.com/3060/2...5a3e4712_k.jpgNew York by Stephy, on Flickr

When the first toothpick was erected, I really was not a fan of the appearance and what it did to the existing skyline. However, since there are now 4 toothpicks [with more to come], I really like the new skyline much more than before.

The huge height to width ratio is just very odd looking on the toothpicks. Some of those must be 25 times taller than they are wide. I can't think of any that you could call great architecture. The marketplace will take care of this. Even the billionaires may not line up to buy so they won't go up. We need affordable apartments (even microapartments) for the 99.99%, not more toothpicks for the .01%. The NYT said the billionaire buyers often just buy them for investments, and don't even live there most of the time. The New York Times ran an article last Sunday about how the sales have gone way down. I guess a shortage of foreign buyers. So, there may be fewer going up.

I'm also not a big fan of Hudson Yards, although there may be one or two buildings there that are OK. I do love the High Line though. Wish DTLA had something like the high line. I guess the Venice boardwalk is sort of like the high line in a way, or at least Coney Island. Equally crowded. If L.A. ever redid the L.A. River like San Antonio (collect/dam the winter floodwaters?) it would have something. Tempe Arizona did a great thing with the Salt River. Made a lake out of it with inflatable dams. Also maybe they could put a roof on the Harbor Freeway & Hollywood Fwy through DTLA and make a linear park like the high line--would link east & west & north & south sides of downtown. . But for DTLA to ever achieve greatness, will have to shelter the homeless. Tents on the sidewalks are so Dickensian. Who can enjoy themselves amidst that misery/squalor?

Great conversation everyone. I keep finding myself agreeing with every post about skinny towers in Manhatten, no matter what side they are on.

I'll defer to you since you live in Chicago. ;)

yep. there is an adjustment period going on.

these new super skinny towers have very unfamiliar proportions, but in a generation or two, they'll just be "classic new york".

some people are already there, many aren't.

Several cities don't do podium towers because parking is typically underground.

They're common in cities with most or all of this: (a) high parking ratios, (b) tough soils, (c) land use codes that allow above-grade parking, and (d) lower rents.

Are NYC's "tooth-picks" a welcome curiosity to the skyline? Not sure. The height/width ratio shakes my geek head. Fragile and wind at risk comes to mind though lol.

But typically NYC has built tall and strong. So I've cancelled future tooth-pick proposals.

It wouldn't be the first time that a Manhattan skyscraper was vulnerable to wind:

I can agree that more of them actually helps balance it out. If it was just 111 West 57th Street it would look ridiculous.

Aesthetically, part of what I find attractive in a skyscraper is it's apparent sturdiness and stability. A slow taper from a wide base is like looking at a mountain. Some of these new super-skinny supertalls are almost unsettling from that perspective. It's the same reason I'm not a big fan of top-heavy designs like Vancouver House.

https://images.skyscrapercenter.com/...65_300x415.jpg
From: https://www.skyscrapercenter.com/bui...er-house/13987

Once again, all personal preference though. All the power to those pushing the envelope with modern engineering.

^ a building like that in the subduction zone PNW no less, that's a big no from me.

^ Wut? :???: I don't even get what your word means.

subduction zone PNW

WTF does that mean? That building is a cool piece of structural engineering.
That's what you meant.

^ pacific northwest -- its built in an earthquake zone.

i dk that it really matters with modern engineering, but it sure looks like it might.

Ok, I got you guys.
I'd forgotten how huge that Pacific tectonics thing is.
You know, it is obvious in California and Chile, not so much up to Canada...

Well, fingers crossed, huh. Or some engineers out there will be sentenced to hell.
But that building would still stand in my region.

Both floods and droughts are our issues over here, but quakes? Nope, we don't have any, so it would be valid out here.

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The one in the middle is hideous. The other one on right at least has some massing and the one on left (432 Park Ave) is appealing from the street. All are about 900' too tall.

The toothpick buildings look like smokestacks at a steel mill or power plant from a distance. All about which billionaire has the highest penthouse. Great architectural design is secondary to height apparently. I bet gold leaf and maybe even gold fixtures are everywhere in the condos. Conspicuous displays of wealth. I'd rather live in one of the old 1920s buildings lining Central Park. The toothpicks are a new money phenomenon. Old money lives in the 1920s classics, places like the Dakota, or in mansions on the upper east side in the 60s and 70s not far from the park, or the money belts in Westchester, Long Island or Conn. I bet the old money people mock those in the toothpicks. If Veblin were still alive, he'd be writing about the showoff toothpicks and those who live in them. Guilded Age 2.0

My understanding is that the Cascadia subduction zone extends from near Eureka in NW Cal (starts at the Mendocino triple junction where the San Andreas ends) all the way to southern BC. It is believed that the Cascadia could generate quakes as large a magnitude 9 every several hundred years. The last such mega-quake is now known from geologic and historic evidence to have occured in the year 1700, 319 years ago. Sometimes the megaquakes are 500 or more years apart, sometimes they are only 200 years apart. The timing is uncertain. Do a web search on "Cascadia megaquake 1700" and all the evidence is there.

It's not the skyline per se, but the density around the Chicago River makes Chicago very unique.

Another skyline that has always impressed me since young kid, is Pittsburgh. The rivers confluence, the park there, and the beautiful buildings with the taller ones behind is incredibly harmonic. Maybe is my favourite in the world.

Outside North America, but with its same logic, I like Johannesburg. The very tall office towers, surrounded by smaller ones and with a highrise residential district right there, plus the TV towers.

After a while, I learned to enjoy the sea-of-highrise type of skyline present in São Paulo, Buenos Aires, etc. They have a Coruscant vibe, an endless urbanity.

This is all bizarre oppositeland. Gold fixtures/over-the-top chintz hasn't been popular in interior design in 30 years. These towers are all built by starchitects and couldn't be of higher caliber design. It's all clean lines and spare aesthetic. Have you seen these interiors?

And it's actually the prewar coops that have all the chintz and glitz. The Dakota/CPW is Hollywood East, not old money. Finally, I seriously doubt suburbanites are laughing at Jeff Bezos, Leonard Lauder, Ken Griffin, Sting, Denzel Washington and random folks who can afford $240 million apartments, in buildings that don't even allow financing.

The only reason it's obvious in California is because of Hollywood and we have 38 million social media posters, and before that, nobody lived nor cared, nor understood the dangers of the Pacific Northwest -- in a similar fashion as the Super Volcano of Yellowstone.

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It has been quite some time since L.A. / S.F. / S.D. have been hit by a sizable quake. 1994 was the last somewhat major quake and that wasn't even near the potential.

I did a thread about Miami's non waterfront skyline views and many commented that it does look like a SE Asian city or even Vancouver.

https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1509/...20112fe3_b.jpg
https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1509/...20112fe3_b.jpg

https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4180/...09c403ae_h.jpg
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4180/...09c403ae_h.jpg

Miami has 11 proposed towers over 300+ meters. I think if even a third of them get built it will dramatically alter the skyline. Hopefully some will get built in the next decade.

....That's not urban :shrug:

EDIT: This was in response to another thread where someone said Miami wasn't urban lol

Urbanity has to be judged at street level, and involves stuff like volumes of parking.

Due to Hollywood people think the big scare is the San Andreas fault (San Francisco), but the bigger problem, by a long shot, is the Cascadia Subduction Zone. When it goes off it will be far more powerful and devastating. Portland, Seattle, Victoria, and Vancouver will get hit, sooner rather than later.

And vice versa. All 3 are quite different from one another.

No one sees the interiors apart from the owners, their guests and a few magazines. What they do see are the exteriors which are meh at best despite who designed them. My favorite architect, I.M. Pei, designed this.

The skinny towers are not good architecture. 432 Park looks nice from the street and has a clean lines but is about 900' too tall.

Actually... it wasn't understood that the Cascadia fault produced seismic activity until the 1980s.

Rumor has it that the billionaire penthouses have lots of gold fixtures, in some cases including solid gold toilet seats. Just like in the guilded age the plutocrats lit cigars with $100 bills, or $500 dollar bills (they had them back then) if they REALLY wanted to show off.

The last big "megaquake" (9.0 or larger) on the Cascadia subduction fault was in the year 1700. They even know the month--January 1700. Plenty of geologic and historic evidence. Google: Cascadia 1700 megaquake. Wikipedia has an article on it. The coast was hit by huge tsunamis from N. California up to BC, and some traveled over to Japan and caused damage. Large parts of the coast subsided and forests were flooded. The quake was probably as large as that which hit Japan in 2011 and Indonesia in 2004.

The last big "megaquake" on the southern San Andreas fault (Salton Sea to Riverside/San Bernardino segment) was also about 300 years ago. So that is probably overdue as well. However, the magnitude would probably be 8 or less. Subduction quakes tend to be very large. The SA segment north of Cajon Pass to Palmdale probably moved in 1812, causing the collapse of the "Great Stone Church" at Mission San Juan Capistrano. The segment from Palmdale north to Parkfield broke in 1857, producing the big Ft. Tejon quake that year. So the the southern segment of the San Andreas is probably most overdue.

Finally, some geologists speculate ("geopoetry") that a fault zone in the Mojave north into Nevada ("The Walker Lane" etc.) may be increasingly taking up the plate movement from the San Andreas, which is impeded by the transverse ranges (San Gabriels etc.). In the far future, the "Walker Lane" may become the new plate boundary, and the Gulf of California may move north into Nevada if the zone starts rifting open (sea-floor spreading). Don't buy beachfront land yet, this will take millions of years if it happens at all. Sizable quakes like Landers and Hector Mine (>7) were on the inland "Walker Lane", as was the more recent Ridgecrest quake. Some of the fairly recent volcanic activity along the Walker Lane (southern Owens Valley, Mammoth area etc.) may be related to this incipient rifting. Plate boundaries are not fixed. They evolve and shift.

That's obviously totally false, amigo.

Mt. St. Helens blew it's top in 1980.

You mean to tell me that nobody knew about seismic activity before that event? [Forget about all the mountains in the Pac NW - lol]

The historical record is pretty clear:

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I'll say as an avid NYC follower, Midtown is a chaotic mess. From a pure aesthetic standpoint, Lower Manhattan wins and is the most balanced skyline node that aesthetically wins IMO.

Now from a holy shit moment, Midtown does take the cake, but is overwhelming.

Chicago is unique in that it doesn't overwhelm one and like NY, it has a massive portfolio of architecture that spans the decades. In a way, Chicago is a giant urban-construct of a museum. You can see the various boom cycles embedded in its skyline and core. From pre-wars all the way to modern architecture. Not to mention that its very, very balanced.

I mentioned in another thread about luck and timing... very important in skyline development. Sometimes, its just luck in how a skyline looks and aesthetically pleases.

Chicago is more like caffeine mixed with some nice green tea. Its calm, can energize the spirit, and doesn't overwhelm. NYC is like a giant hit of methamphetamine. Just overwhelms the senses and can make one a bit on edge. Both excite the spirit, but depends if you want a nice buzz or a adrenaline rush that will cause you to crash hard at the end of the day.

I kinda felt this with Chicago when I went. A tad bit calm, somewhat sedated, but still provided a nice thrill with its skyline and even street energy.

On a side note, Miami is up and coming. Its made great strides in the last 10 years. It punches above its weight. Likewise with Seattle, which is booming like crazy.

Houston, Dallas and Chicago don't stand out? Really?

I'll leave Houston out to avoid sounding like a homer but Dallas is amazing imo, especially at night. And Chicago simply has too many iconic towers not to stand out.

I disagree with his assessment about Chicago; Sears, JHC and now Trump all have prominent spires/ antennae. Houston however, severely is lacking in this area.

i think you'd be hard-pressed to find many who would agree with his assessment of chicago's skyscraper architecture.

chicago is widely regarded as having some of the best skyscraper architecture throughout history, going all the way back to the very beginnings of the building type in the 19th century.

along with NYC, chicago is one of the absolute best skyscraper museums on the planet. i doubt you could find a single architectural historian at any university on the planet who would disagree with that.

as just one small example of this, in the 2013 edition of judith durpe's very popular book "Skyscrapers" (i'm sure all of us nerds have an edition of it laying around somewhere), there are 10 entries for individual chicago skyscrapers (the 2nd most of any city globally). NYC is obviously #1 with 18 entries.

Exactly.

The new Chicago Architecture Center is absolutely amazing. I could spend hours staring at that model.

Chicago is a great destination for a field trip for Architecture students. If anything, its a must in the curriculum.

Kinda like Mecca and Medina, every architect should go to at least Chicago and NYC once in their lifetimes. Praying is optional, but recommended. ;)

Just stay clear of the devil, the Kaufmans of the world. Some architecture is not meant to be seen, and can open Pandoras box if a future architect follow the footsteps of the devil. I'm sure Chicago has its terrible architects out there that mass produce budget developments with little creativity.

Hopefully one day the spire/mast conversation will reopen at the CTBUH. The masts on JHC and Sears should count towards the overall height. They are an integral part of the design IMO, and those towers without the masts would lose character.

Just remember that you're only going to get good pizza and hot dogs at one of those two cities :D

ARE YOU FUCKING INSANE?

both NYC and chicago are utterly awash in fantastic pizza.

they are two of the holiest cities in all of Pizzatarianism.

as for hot dogs, the only time i ever ate one in NYC was at nathan's down in coney island, so i don't have enough experience to comment.