Renovated Skyscrapers

[KentXie]

I remember seeing renderings of a recladded Prudential Tower or a redesigned JHT and thought that such plans will never happen.

Then I came about Tour First in Paris, which 522ft tower turned 758ft. Are there any other towers that underwent these types of transformation. (I think there is a twin tower in either Latin American or South America that also had a re-cladding makeover but didn't see any height changes.

Before:

After:

Btw, does anyone have those redesigns for JHT and the Pru laying around?

Ah I just notice there was a thread for this already. This can be closed.

http://www.archboston.org/community/showthread.php?t=1960

 

[itchy]

Yep, there are other precedents I can think of for the two phenomena you mention (dramatic changes in skyscraper height and skyscraper recladding):

1) Dramatic increases in skyscraper height: The example that comes to mind is 300 East Randolph in Chicago, which went from 30 stories to 54 a few years ago (see here).

Other examples are the Hearst Building - a beautiful Norman Foster skyscraper build over a 1930s pediment in NYC - and the (going-nowhere-fast) proposal to build a Daniel Libeskind skyscraper over the 1930s MetLife pediment at Madison Sq. Park in NYC.

2) Large-scale recladdings: This has been happening with second-tier buildings in NYC pretty frequently the past 5 years - sometimes manifesting itself in recladdings of 1960s crap facades in glass with decent results (e.g., 330 Madison, 1095 Sixth Avenue), sometimes destroying great old masonry pre-war buildings with the same blue, green or clear glass (e.g., 2 Columbus Circle).

 

[JohnAKeith]

Here's both 2 Columbus Circle and the Trump International Hotel and Tower née Gulf + Western building.