What the prettiest skyline under 500-600 ft?

[UrbanImpact]

Brazil (South America in general) have a lot of short skylines.

Belo Horizonte, Brazil:
Vista parcial aerea do centro de Belo Horizonte by Gil Leonardi, on Flickr

belo-horizonte-2 by Daniel Kick, on Flickr

Belo_Serra_Corral-Edit by Landon Wright, on Flickr

[MolsonExport]

Looks exactly like SimCity 2000.

[CaliNative]

San Diego and Cincinnati are nice skylines. SD tops out at 500' but looks taller and is quite dense with lots of buildings. Cincy has a nice skyline with a mix of old (Carew etc.) and new, nearly all below 600'. The SD location on the bay with mountains behind, and Cincy on the river with hills are attractive as well. Oakland also has a nice smaller skyline that is growing, and Long Beach CA shows promise as well.

[SFBruin]

Originally Posted by pianowizard

Rio de Janeiro, with its tallest building being only 535 ft:

That view is absolutely epic.

[Shawn]

Originally Posted by 3rd&Brown

I can't get behind a skyline where I know the city is dead on the ground.

Who cares how pretty if there's nothing to do.

But this thread is explicitly and only about skyline aesthetics. Not the pedestrian experience or on-the-ground liveliness. Whether or not there's "nothing to do" is irrelevant to this discussion.

But since you brought it up . . . I'll say that American skylines dominated by balcony-heavy residential towers tend to have worse on-the-ground experiences than cities without them. Balcony-heavy residential in the US tends to be built on top of parking garage podiums with horrible street activation. "Towers in the park" blah blah blah. Think Brickell Avenue. Honolulu does a far better job at good activation than other US cities heavy on balconied residential.

um... muthafuckin' ROME. tallest building ~509 ft. (Really, any number of European cities...)


https://media.gettyimages.com/photos...43?s=2048x2048


https://virginiesuys.be/wp-content/u...-1920x1081.jpg

[mr1138]

Originally Posted by IWant2BeInSTL

um... muthafuckin' ROME. tallest building ~509 ft. (Really, any number of European cities...)

Yep! My thoughts exactly. If we're staying under 600' then give me a city of stone buildings, tile rooftops, and church steeples any day over a city of generic mid-20th century towers.

[SFBruin]

Originally Posted by Shawn

"Towers in the park" blah blah blah.

Towers in the Park can be nice, but yes, the US tends to do a horrible job with this, both with bland architecture and with putting everything on top of parking podiums that kill the street level vibe.

[UrbanImpact]

Originally Posted by Shawn

But this thread is explicitly and only about skyline aesthetics. Not the pedestrian experience or on-the-ground liveliness. Whether or not there's "nothing to do" is irrelevant to this discussion.

But since you brought it up . . . I'll say that American skylines dominated by balcony-heavy residential towers tend to have worse on-the-ground experiences than cities without them. Balcony-heavy residential in the US tends to be built on top of parking garage podiums with horrible street activation. "Towers in the park" blah blah blah. Think Brickell Avenue. Honolulu does a far better job at good activation than other US cities heavy on balconied residential.

I think people's perceptions will change a bit once Miami's current projects are finished. Just putting it out there that Miami's main street now is Miami Ave, not Brickell.

Here is Miami Ave., this is older and now the bases of these buildings are populated with businesses. I did the architectural drawings for a Chipotle in the corner of this rainbow stripped building (again google street view is not current):
https://goo.gl/maps/qBLppWZfzgosxEqb6

[edale]

I welcome the day when that damn city center mall can stop being used to showcase Miami's urbanity

[SIGSEGV]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

Looks exactly like SimCity 2000.

That last picture looks like a screenshot of cities skylines.

[Nite]

Vancouver


1188 Wolfe Avenue Vancouver-36 by ONIKON Creative, on Flickr

[SFBruin]

My Alexa device tells me that the tallest building in Vancouver is 659 feet tall.

If so, then maybe the best NA skyline below 700 ft.

[ue]

Originally Posted by Nite

Vancouver


1188 Wolfe Avenue Vancouver-36 by ONIKON Creative, on Flickr

I think Vancouver has a lot of positive attributes, but I never got the allure of the skyline. It has a strong table top effect due to the egregious height limits (I do think height limits *can* have a place but generally they do nothing in Canadian cities) and just way too much of the same '90s-'00s sea green glass condos that blend in together. I appreciate what Vancouver House has done, and other projects like the Butterfly look interesting, but with the table top, it's going to feel bland and uninteresting. Vancouver's skyline is just a bunch of buildings that blend and don't stand out, becoming a big blob of green/blue, not unlike how a lot of Brazilian skylines are a bunch of generic white/grey slab towers of similar height.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by UrbanImpact

I think people's perceptions will change a bit once Miami's current projects are finished. Just putting it out there that Miami's main street now is Miami Ave, not Brickell.

Here is Miami Ave., this is older and now the bases of these buildings are populated with businesses. I did the architectural drawings for a Chipotle in the corner of this rainbow stripped building (again google street view is not current):
https://goo.gl/maps/qBLppWZfzgosxEqb6

This always trips me out: https://www.google.com/maps/@25.7663...4!8i8192?hl=en

[craigs]

Vancouver has an enviable amount of condo towers, so let's get that out of the way right off the bat.

That said, in the context of the prettiest skyline under 600 ft, it doesn't fit the bill. First, Vancouver proper has two towers over that limit, and Burnaby has three more. Second, a skyline that consists almost entirely of similarly colored, similarly sized towers of wall-to-wall balconies is too banal to take the "prettiest" title (even if it qualified). That photo above is filled with condo clones.

[Shawn]

Originally Posted by JManc

This always trips me out: https://www.google.com/maps/@25.7663...4!8i8192?hl=en

This looks like Kuala Lumpur, no exaggeration. Or an upscale development on the outskirts of Singapore. Just replace the BK with a Jollibee or KFC.

[Shawn]

Originally Posted by SFBruin

Towers in the Park can be nice, but yes, the US tends to do a horrible job with this, both with bland architecture and with putting everything on top of parking podiums that kill the street level vibe.

Almost every large residential tower in Japan is a tower in the park, with balconies too. They just recess the balconies (by law) and do 1000x better at activating the podium with retail people who live in the area actually use.

To reference my post above and in contrast with Japanese cities, KL and Singapore and Miami tend to either have zero retail in their residential tower podiums, or they have high-end shops already represented in the city with other retail locations. It’s like every developer in SG or Miami thinks their tower needs a Vacheron Constantin boutique. Just what the neighborhood needed.

[Buckeye Native 001]

It helps cities like Vancouver and some of the Brazilian cities that mountains and bodies of water/beaches contribute to the scenery. But even distinctive towers like Harbour Centre have a difficult time standing out.

Then again, my hometown's tallest building has a giant, gaudy tiara so it's all subjective.

[ue]

Originally Posted by Buckeye Native 001

It helps cities like Vancouver and some of the Brazilian cities that mountains and bodies of water/beaches contribute to the scenery. But even distinctive towers like Harbour Centre have a difficult time standing out.

Then again, my hometown's tallest building has a giant, gaudy tiara so it's all subjective.

Yeah, but I tend to view the natural setting separately. Vancouver and Rio have gorgeous natural geography -- that can't be disputed, but the structures that make up the urban skyline leave a lot to be desired.

Vancouver's most distinctive looking buildings -- the old office core, One Wall Centre, Vancouver House, and the Woodwards building are all the same height generally as the endless curtain wall and stucco condos and so unless you have an angle where these buildings are front and centre (like False Creek and Vancouver House) it kind of gets lost in the shuffle.

A similar thing is happening in Toronto, where the far more distinctive old Financial Core towers are getting hidden behind the endless blue-green glass of Southcore, Harbourfront, and CityPlace. The only thing that still stands out as 'Toronto' from certain angles (especially the lake) is the CN Tower.