Skylines and Developments of the US/World

This pic was recently posted on skyscrapercity. It makes me think that Philadelphia is a prime contender to snag the spot of 3rd best skyline in the US, if it isn't there already. I would have leaned towards LA, and then probably SF after Transbay was built, but now I think Philadelphia is finally filling out enough to be the newest claimant. Its issue was always the lack of total buildings over 150m (still lagging notably behind Boston). However, its set of showstoppers is as good as any US city outside NYC and Chicago, so now that's it's adding some "Boston sized" buildings to complement them it's really taking off!

As a side note I would give anything for a "3 Liberty Place" to be built as Boston's new tallest! 1 LP has always been one of my all time favorite buildings.

20210806027 by Joseph Schmitt, on Flickr
 
Blackbird said:
Maybe it's an unpopular opinion, but I find both newer Comcast towers to be kind of ugly.
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Liberty Place siblings are 100x better than the Comcast towers. Comcast ones do have uniqueness, scale, and a quality of materials that isn't found in the garbage sprouting up in say, Toronto or Miami. 1 Liberty should be transported to Boston and plopped down around Lechmere. Then put Cleveland's Key Tower on top of the Hynes and we'd have ourselves an actual contender for 3rd best skyline in the US!
 
The new arthaus tower in philly looks great imo. Ive never been a big fan of phillys skyline as a whole, there are some nice individual buildings, but with some better infill I think it could become much better. If schuykill yards is done right that could make a huge difference as well.

Society hill towers individually are very nice
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Arthaus seems to pay homage in a modern way. I think its one of the better towers going up anywhere.
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the skyscrapercity thread
https://www.skyscrapercity.com/thre...ad-street-173m-567ft-47-fl-t-o.1674618/page-4
 
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London has fully embraced the multi-polar core philosiphy that is taking over cities across the world and they have a huge head start. Its going to set them up nicely for the future, especially with their distributed transit network. The new mega port theyre building near the nouth of the thames is another piece that is really setting them up nicely for the future of trade.
 
stick n move said:
Ive never been a big fan of phillys skyline as a whole
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Even the 1990s-2000s skyline? Before the Comcast Center came along, Philly had probably the most well-balanced skyline in the country, not to mention having some of the most attractive postmodern skyscrapers IMO.

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I've come to think of it as the 1990s version of Lower Manhattan in how it had a very clearly defined peak with towers that were proud to be towers (fancy hats!) plus the whole skyline looked good from any direction, anywhere in the city. I know skylines can't stay static, but those Comcast interlopers always look like sore thumbs to me.
 
Less so skyline, more so development, and a big development:

Toronto Quayside Community is back after a failed attempt by Google to create a Smart City without talking much to Toronto too see if they were up to becoming a lab experiment for smart cities.

There's some really interesting work here, and it's by a great list of Architects: Adjaye, Alison Brooks, and Henning Larsen.

  • 800 affordable units
  • Mass timber residential buildings
  • Multi-use arts venue
  • All electric, zero carbon (hm)
  • Urban Farming
Looking beyond all the greenwashing (and there's a TON, possibly the worst offender I've seen recently) in these renders, it's still inspiring to see a large-scale development of this size in 2022.

[Source]

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DZH22 said:
Based on Toronto's track record, these cheap looking white panels will probably be the only part of the development that actually resembles the renders.
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I don't know what your gripe is with Toronto but their track record of churning out quality towers is actually pretty solid. Easily the third best in North America behind Chicago and NYC. You should go take a trip out there and actually see them in person.
 
KentXie said:
I don't know what your gripe is with Toronto but their track record of churning out quality towers is actually pretty solid. Easily the third best in North America behind Chicago and NYC. You should go take a trip out there and actually see them in person.
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Third best from a size/quantity standpoint, easily. Otherwise it is full of dull, monotonous, cheap-glass towers that look like they ordered maybe 3 types of cladding for 90% of the city.

I was there in 2002 and honestly hated the place, but at least they still had the cleaner looking office-dominant skyline. Now those better buildings are totally buried from most angles.
 
DZH22 said:
Third best from a size/quantity standpoint, easily. Otherwise it is full of dull, monotonous, cheap-glass towers that look like they ordered maybe 3 types of cladding for 90% of the city.

I was there in 2002 and honestly hated the place, but at least they still had the cleaner looking office-dominant skyline. Now those better buildings are totally buried from most angles.
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2002...yeah you need to go back there again. Here's what they have put up since then:

Aura:
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One Bloor:
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CIBC:
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St. Regis:
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Uptown Residences:
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88 Scott:
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And here's what they are currently putting up.
Skytower (essentially a better version of one of the proposal for Winthrop Center):
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The One:
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And these are not everything they put up since then. Obviously, everyone has different taste but I'm hard pressed to find any other North American city that did better in designing skyscrapers since 2000 other than Chicago and NYC.
 
KentXie said:
2002...yeah you need to go back there again. Here's what they have put up since then:
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Yeah I'm well aware of what's been built. Bottom 2/3 of Aura is terrible. 1 Bloor is disappointing from most angles. St. Regis (ie Trump Toronto) is hated by most SSC/SSP posters from there, and needs a fancy lighting shot like that to look good. Uptown is nice but plain, and one of the poorer examples of that throwback style. 88 Scott is a bit of a sloppy mess. The One appears like it will look awful but who knows. Skytower... Not sold on all those exposed balconies, a Toronto hallmark. CIBC definitely looks pretty good, but is an all glass building surrounded by all glass buildings.

From a quantity/scale standpoint yes Toronto has been absolutely killing it for 2 straight decades. From a quality standpoint there's not a single one of those residentials I would say looks superior to 1 Dalton or Millennium Tower. So they have out-built us in that area like 10:1, yet no singular project is all that good in the scheme of things.

Here's a random snippet of the waterfront area. I certainly get how much more has been built, especially inland. Yet, do they only have 1 color scheme in Toronto? Do they only have 1 singular, mediocre glass-maker that supplies Toronto? It may be 3x the size today that it was in 2002, but it was 10x more attractive when it was a cleaner looking, office-dominant skyline.

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What looks good in this next shot? The old office towers, CN Tower, CIBC (I'll give you that one), and... The rest is appalling.

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I always thought Vancouver was where architecture went to die, but its Canadian big brother has decided to hog the spotlight for itself!

Here's a more typically terrible looking shot of 1 Bloor.

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If there's 1 word I'd use above all others to describe Toronto's aesthetics, it's drab.
 
Again, it's a matter of taste and context. Stick One Dalton and Millennium Tower in Toronto and neither one would stand out. Stick any of the ones I mentioned from Toronto in Boston and they would stand out, not from just the sheer height, but because most are not a monolithic blocks that blends into Boston's blocky skyscrapers, and those that are breaks up the monotony with a dynamic facade. I also don't buy into, "yeah but if you look from other angles, the tower is bland." The new State Street tower looks fat and bland from the side but I doubt many people on this forum would say that it is a badly designed tower. If you feel like Boston did better, fair enough. There is always a hometown bias but let's not kid ourselves by pretending Toronto only churns out "cheap" stuff, which itself is grossly subjective.
 
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Los Angeles has been rapidly densifying the DTLA core in recent years, with several large developments approved or u/c around my area. There's a plethora of other proposals but I'm not going to list them here until they are approved, seeing how a few of these towers have been approved for a couple of years but do not have a groundbreaking date (most likely delayed by the pandemic). Looking forward to seeing them rise hopefully over the next few years.

Olympic Tower (742 ft) Approved
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Angel Flights (854 ft/495ft) Approved
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1045 South Olive Street (810 ft) Approved
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755 S. Figueroa (695ft) U/C
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8th and Figueroa (530 ft) U/C
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Fig+Pico (465 ft) U/C
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Olympic and Hill (760 ft) Approved
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Pershing Square Tower (784 ft) Approved
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Olympia Towers (853ft/653ft/550ft) Approved
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Tribune Tower (616 ft) Approved
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