Skylines and Developments of the US/World

Makes me think what if Boston had done the same... or even NYC... Imagine having the old city in tact and a separate cbd. It would be interesting, but I do like American style cities where its a huge mix of old and new as well (besides shit transit and mass highways). I do think London honestly is doing a better job though of mixing both, keeping their history in tact while massively expanding into the 21st century vs American cities which were raped by urban renewal and general greed (penn station teardown).

Paris I think for their situation took the best approach.
 
stick n move said:
Makes me think what if Boston had done the same... or even NYC... Imagine having the old city in tact and a separate cbd. It would be interesting, but I do like American style cities where its a huge mix of old and new as well (besides shit transit and mass highways). I do think London honestly is doing a better job though of mixing both, keeping their history in tact while massively expanding into the 21st century vs American cities which were raped by urban renewal and general greed (penn station teardown).

Paris I think for their situation took the best approach.
Click to expand...

Give Boston more credit than that. A lot of the financial district is built on the burn scar of the Boston Fire. The Back Bay business district is built on an old rail yard; so is the Seaport District. Kendall was a swamp and then an industrial wasteland.

We all know that other parts of the city did get the urban renewal treatment. But we're pretty close to having 'the old city intact with a separate, new CBD'. A lot of the destruction was for highways anyway.
 
Japans tallest coming 2022

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“The development, which has been 30 years in the making, has tentatively been dubbed the Toranomon-Azabudai project”

Hmm, crazy.
https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/tokyo-skyline-soaring-to-new-heights
 
Guangzhou is one of my favorite skylines, and is absolutely one of the best in the world. Its tallest building is over 1700', and the observation tower tops 1900'. The scale is unbelievable! The city as a whole seems very overwhelming.

珠江新城 by lok, on Flickr

Untitled by lok, on Flickr

IMG_7916 by lok, on Flickr
 
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Shenzhen as well, definitely a city Im trying to visit asap. Major plus that its a stones throw from Hong Kong. Its also close to Guangzhou and Macao as well. I havent been to China yet, but this part of the country must be one giant megalopolis.

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Its literally never ending

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Future skyline
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The inexplicable chop-down of Ping An at the very last moment left a bad taste in my mouth. There was supposed to be a spire on top! It would have looked substantially better! I am honestly trying to figure out how they are proposing much taller buildings in the city, yet Ping An can't get its spire.

Still, Shenzhen is definitely making a push for Top 1-3 skyline in the world by 2025. It will take more than just volume to overtake NYC though. It lacks both NYC's history and density, so it really needs to be an overwhelming force whereas NYC is also surging with construction. If things continue on their current trajectory it probably has a more realistic shot at #1 by 2030. It's probably the most "Coruscant" like skyline in the world at this point, even more than Dubai.

EDIT: Here's 1 more shot of Shenzhen, less than a year old.

Shenzhen at night by Mike Leung, on Flickr
 
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Agreed. Also China has figured out how to make world class supertalls. Unlike Dubai they practiced for decades on low rises how to hone their style and what it will be, and theyve figured it out. Now that theyre going very tall that has had 2 major benefits.
1. Huge volume of background buildings that fill in the cityscapes as far as the eye can see. With no turds being too tall... besides cctv hq Beijing imo.
2. Lots and lots of practice. This allowed them to get their own style down pat, of what great Chinese supertalls will look like, so when it was time they brought it.. As they got better the buildings got taller, and now they have incredible supertalls.

... This is unlike Dubai who went tall af, asap, so now SZR is a world class collection of turds. Theyve figured out their own style now too, which you can see popping up along the boulevard which look absolutely great, but unfortunately SZR will always be there as a monument to building too fast without a vision.

Its always best to experiment short, and as you get better and better and find your legs go taller and taller and any turds that you built early on will fade into the background and even possibly short enough to demo.
 
Is it just me or is Moscow building the best buildings in the world right now? Im not talking about their skyscrapers though, but mid and low rises. On skyscrapercity under city/metro compilations Moscow is FAR ahead. Their architecture is lots of stone, brick, and its some of the only stuff thats noticeably new, but has the quality of older buildings. Theyve figured out how to create new buildings that in the future will be historic and will never be knocked down.

Im not sure if theyre just paying more money for materials than other cities and also maybe trying to make up for decades of boring commie blocks. I was surprised a while back how for as old as Moscow is, the city was kind of spaced out and not as wonderful a mix of old and new like a London. They are FAST making up for lost time. EVERYBODY should be taking notes of how to build new build buildings that will be future historic structures. Im blow away every time I look.

I would LOVE to see Boston filling out the neighborhoods with buildings like these 3-6 stories, quality materials, and high density... and replace as many triple deckers as possible... preferably... all of them. Seriously though if were not going to build tall we should be building as dense as possible further and further and further from the core and with buildings that are not a flip but something to take pride in that we will want to keep forever once built. Those days are not in the past if you dont want them to be as Moscow is showing.
 
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How much of Moscow's mid-level development scene is centered around graft? I honestly don't know, but the high-rise scene sure is. The Kremlin has its fingers in a LOT.
 
I actually stayed in La Defense earlier this summer. Most of the roads are tunnels beneath the pedestrian walkways up above. It's not an exciting area at all, but working there seems to be OK.
 
Well stick, in order for Boston to do that, it needs to invest in its transportation a little more. Would love to see it building quality dense structures like Moscow, but there seems to be so little push for Transit upgrades. Like the GLX is great and all, but there should be about 3-4 GLX scale projects every 5 years.

Seriously since the recession, NSRL, Blue/Red Connection at Charles/MGH, Blue Extension to Lynn and grand Junction through Cambridge to Chelsea and Kenmore should have been done or in the phasing stages. Mass is very wealthy, I simply dont understand why these arent done. Things that seem like a no brainer here, seem to face backlash, underfunding and postpones here in not just boston, but North America.

I love this forum, because imagine the scale of the development in say Boston if the NSRL, Blue/Red, Blue Ext and Grand Junction were to happen. the US has a very high population growth rate and a chance to have a much stronger economic growth, but choses to limit that with limits in its transit system. Jpan is seeing all this growth via a declining population and stagnant economy ... come on US, step it up.
 
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Its nuts when LA is building an ENTIRE metro, that will be 2nd most extensive in the US when complete, Seattle is expanding tens of miles in every direction, Nyc has tunnels going on everyyyywhere with 2nd ave subway, east side access, no7 extension to hudson yards, metro north to east Bronx...

Boston has... glx. Which was sliced down to the bare minimum and is just being built next to existing right of ways... come on. At a MINIMUM red-blue and glx should both be u/c.

Like you said Ma has lots of money. I wish we took pride in our transit like Japan and strived to be the best in the US. I could absolutely see it too. Someone in the big dig special from tv described it perfectly: we get scared from past mega projects and let it stifle our future. Its time to move the FUKJJGGG on from big dig mania and push ahead smartly but deliberately towards our next transformational project. We cant let being shell shocked by the big dig let us wallow in traffic misery for the rest of time...

The big dig actually made Boston a billion times better and brought us into the 21st century with beautiful waterfront access and a downtown park, NSRL and other needed projects would be just as transformational.
 
DZH22 said:
The inexplicable chop-down of Ping An at the very last moment left a bad taste in my mouth. There was supposed to be a spire on top! It would have looked substantially better! I am honestly trying to figure out how they are proposing much taller buildings in the city, yet Ping An can't get its spire.

Still, Shenzhen is definitely making a push for Top 1-3 skyline in the world by 2025. It will take more than just volume to overtake NYC though. It lacks both NYC's history and density, so it really needs to be an overwhelming force whereas NYC is also surging with construction. If things continue on their current trajectory it probably has a more realistic shot at #1 by 2030. It's probably the most "Coruscant" like skyline in the world at this point, even more than Dubai.

EDIT: Here's 1 more shot of Shenzhen, less than a year old.

Shenzhen at night by Mike Leung, on Flickr
Click to expand...

Again I havent been there but is it just me or do they neglect their waterfront in Shenzhen? I hadnt even realized it was on a bay until much later, because its never photographed. Even when a picture is taken from there its from the air, like theres no pedestrian access yet. Im sure its because it grew so fast, but it looks like its not even accessible yet. Im sure it will be at some point and when it is it will be great.
 
Check out this one going up in Hamburg.
Anyone care to take a stab as to what category one would file it under?

www.skyscrapercity.com

HAMBURG | Elbtower | 245m | 803ft | 57 fl | U/C

The current Hafencity-Masterplan for the eastern development areas includes an approved high of 110 meter for one building. Design competitions will follow. The winning masterplan was made by http://hosoyaschaefer.com not much to show for now, but of curse I keep my eye on it...
www.skyscrapercity.com www.skyscrapercity.com
 
The Salesforce Tower in Sydney looks sharp. Love a good tall rectangular building.
 
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