Re: New tower at Aquarium parking lot.
True, of course. Ablarc is right, imo. We are all inclined to view home favorably, wherever that may be. (Many of us from Boston may feel that more so.)
But the yen for height on this forum simply because -- what, other cities have it? -- seems, honestly, adolescent. Most of us get over our fascination with erections when we become men. Is height really, really, all that important? Wouldn't we be better served if we talk about good design instead of height. Shouldn't that be the standard?
I would not want to live in Hong Kong. The pictures, pretty as they are, reveal only part of the story of that evolving city. It is not a pleasant metropolis to inhabit (ask the citizens who live there), and the architecture, as photogenic as it may be, is in some part a reason for the unpleasantness. Honestly. The city is an ant's nest of congestion and confusion. Politics bear the burden of blame, of course, but architecture has not solved the problems, only exacerbated them.
The section of the city I like the best, the old part, feels real, original, local and liveable. It is, however, exorbitantly, mind-bogglingly expensive. The rest, the new stuff, is best appreciated from a distance, a great distance, preferably from the water -- which is where you see most pictures taken. It is not a pleasant city to experience on the street, not if you had to deal with it every day.
I love Chicago. One of the best walking cities in America. Some of my favorite buildings are there. Our own HHR shined in Chicago. Millennium Park? I wish we had that. But guys, they call it the city of big shoulders for a reason -- it goes on forever. I mean when they did the world's fair there at the turn of the last century they had room enough to literally create a whole new city, and to also make an enormous lake to go with it. They have boulevards and streets that create manageable L'Enfant-like grids. We have cow paths.
I'm off topic. It's not about liveability, this discussion is about skylines.
Forget pretty pictures. These are the creations of salesmen, city fathers, the architectural press or the architects themselves. We have a lovely skyline. Currently, an evolving one. By this time next year it will look modestly different. It is not an unrelenting wall of skyscrapers, true. Thank God. Any city can do that. We're better. We're Boston.