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I think Chicago's skyline would be lowered down several notches without the benefit of having the Willis tower, perhaps not to the extent of Toronto and the CN Tower, but every city has a principle iconic building perhaps save for HK... Even NYC is iconic because of the ESB.
Not anything remotely close to To's dependence on CN Tower.
Willis Tower is 442M, compared with 423 for Trump Chicaogo, 346M for Aon tower and 344M for Hancock Tower. They are all within 100M away from the tallest. How would you say Chicago's skyline will be lowered down by several notches without Willis Tower? It hardly dominates. 5 others are above 300M, or at least 70% of its height.
in Comparison CN tower is 533M, and all other tallest buildings are under 300M, all 235M+ away from it. Even if everything is constructed, we still won't have anything above 300M. The CN tower possesses absolute dominance, because no other building is over 56% of its height.
Same for New York and Hong Kong. One would be silly to deny that.
I don't like the fact that Toronto's tallest buildings are all between Yonge and University. I would prefer it spread a bit further, to Spadina and Jarvis (200M+ towers) for example. and all new tall buildings are almost all on Yonge-York st. It definitely reduces the visual impact.
In contrast, many of Chicago's tallest and most beautiful skyscrapers are not located in the LOOP, which makes their skyline more balanced.
If the Mirvish and the Casino projects went along, it will change the game significantly as TO skyline will cease to be about the CN tower any more.
Don't get me wrong. I am still impressed by Toronto's skyline. It is quite good for the size of the city, compared with say LA, Boston, Philly or Houston. I just happen to think Chicago, NYC and Hong Kong belong to a totally different league. We don't belong up there.
Last edited by botticelli; 02-15-2013 at 06:56 AM..
Great post and I agree that we'll never have the classic gems that Chicago has and we can't fault T.O for that - just cities who are having their time in the spotlight at different times. I think it is clear though, that if Chicago doesn't start to soon develop the same mentality as Toronto with respect to vertical densification - T.O will close the gap with Chicago in terms of density and hight by decades end and that is not far off!
No one can fault a city for not having the historical architectural gems that Chicago has. Chicago is an originator of the skyscaper which has taken form in big cities around the world, except Europe. But the reason why I think Chicago's skyline is so spectacular (and one of my favourites) is because of the day time views. I did an architectual boat tour there and they must of pointed out 40-50 buildings that were just stunning in form, design and style. The city is so much more than just the Willis. Their skyline looks great from a far but their structures are equally great when you get up close and just walk the streets. It's like looking at artwork in the sky. There are many cities in the world that have more buildings than Chicago but not many that can match it's beauty and design.
Now TO definitely has a great skyline for a city its size but I don't think its growth can match the historical beauty of Chicago that was built up over the last 50+ years and growth spurts do not last forever. It needs to make economic sense to build something and we've built too many condos already. To me, we should be learning from our older sister city across the lake, thus I would like to see Toronto have higher standards in terms of aesthetics. If we are going to go modern, then lets do modern right and we haven't always been doing this. We can't change a lot of those eye soars by the water but going forward, beauty should be a higher consideration instead of putting something up in odd places with the cheapest cost possible, e.g. how can glass fall off the Shangri-La for instance?
Perhaps my vision is different, but I also don't think more buildings is necessarily our most pressing need. I would much rather see the city focus more on parks, squares/open space, monuments and transportation. I know the topic is skylines but IMO these aspects are more important when it comes to building a great city and something that our city planners have overlooked for too long. We can't just focus on the exterior views from a far, after all, we live and play in the interior.
Last edited by johnathanc; 02-15-2013 at 12:31 PM..
^How could a city in a country with 1,344,130,000 people, laxed labour laws, communism, and the second largest economy in the world achieve such a thing?
If anything, you are only contributing to how impressive Toronto's condo boom is.. the population of Shanghai alone will be larger than all of Canada in the distant future
Last edited by Humid Subtropical; 02-15-2013 at 01:01 PM..
^How could a city in a country with 1,344,130,000 people, laxed labour laws, communism, and the second largest economy in the world achieve such a thing?
If anything, you are only contributing to how impressive Toronto's condo boom is.. the population of Shanghai alone will be larger than all of Canada in the distant future
Less than 10% of those buildings are condos. It is really not a "condo boom" there.
I am only talking about changing skylines here. No interest in discussing labour laws or communism.
I never deny Toronto's building boom is pretty impressive, actually I explicitly admitted that. It is just as stunning and unprecedently as many seem to think. NYC and Chicago all experienced that, now iti s Toronto's turn.
Hopefully we won't not end up being an all-glass wall city. Many of those all glass towers will probably look cheap and outdated in 20 years. I agree we should put quality first and building something that our children will still appreciate in 200 years.
Well beauty is in the eye of the beholder - I like historical buildings like the rest of them but far too often I find that if it isn't 'classical' it isn't beautiful which is a shame really.
Toronto is upping its game on the architecutural quality of its building imo - and I think that this is our decade. Personally I like, Aura, ICE, The L tower, Four Season's and Shangri-La...
You can't call the latest boom a "spurt" - it has been almost a decade now with no real sign of let up. This is due to demographics and growth coupled with public policy. These combination of factors are not being realized in Chicago and I stand by my claim that T.O will overtake Chicago minus the 'classical' beautiful architecture which can't be done. Regardless, nobody is going to stop the money machine because they want to appease the architectural demands of CD members lol..
Quote:
Originally Posted by johnathanc
No one can fault a city for not having the historical architectural gems that Chicago has. Chicago is an originator of the skyscaper which has taken form in big cities around the world, except Europe. But the reason why I think Chicago's skyline is so spectacular (and one of my favourites) is because of the day time views. I did an architectual boat tour there and they must of pointed out 40-50 buildings that were just stunning in form, design and style. The city is so much more than just the Willis. Their skyline looks great from a far but their structures are equally great when you get up close and just walk the streets. It's like looking at artwork in the sky. There are many cities in the world that have more buildings than Chicago but not many that can match it's beauty and design.
Now TO definitely has a great skyline for a city its size but I don't think its growth can match the historical beauty of Chicago that was built up over the last 50+ years and growth spurts do not last forever. It needs to make economic sense to build something and we've built too many condos already. To me, we should be learning from our older sister city across the lake, thus I would like to see Toronto have higher standards in terms of aesthetics. If we are going to go modern, then lets do modern right and we haven't always been doing this. We can't change a lot of those eye soars by the water but going forward, beauty should be a higher consideration instead of putting something up in odd places with the cheapest cost possible, e.g. how can glass fall off the Shangri-La for instance?
Perhaps my vision is different, but I also don't think more buildings is necessarily our most pressing need. I would much rather see the city focus more on parks, squares/open space, monuments and transportation. I know the topic is skylines but IMO these aspects are more important when it comes to building a great city and something that our city planners have overlooked for too long. We can't just focus on the exterior views from a far, after all, we live and play in the interior.
I'm not talking about comparative heights i'm talking about the iconic status of a building and in Chicago it is Willis and in NYC it is ESB.. if either of those cities didn't have these icons they would be lowered a few notches was my point! That is all....Personally, I'm glad we had the Tallest freestanding structure in the world for 35 years and we still have it in the Western Hemisphere - nothing to slam there unless you are a person who see's the glass half empty when it comes to Toronto.
Toronto is getting close to being in Chicago's league in terms of density and if things don't change in Chicago which they probably will not , Toronto will in height as well...I think the writing is on the wall...
Quote:
Originally Posted by botticelli
Not anything remotely close to To's dependence on CN Tower.
Willis Tower is 442M, compared with 423 for Trump Chicaogo, 346M for Aon tower and 344M for Hancock Tower. They are all within 100M away from the tallest. How would you say Chicago's skyline will be lowered down by several notches without Willis Tower? It hardly dominates. 5 others are above 300M, or at least 70% of its height.
in Comparison CN tower is 533M, and all other tallest buildings are under 300M, all 235M+ away from it. Even if everything is constructed, we still won't have anything above 300M. The CN tower possesses absolute dominance, because no other building is over 56% of its height.
Same for New York and Hong Kong. One would be silly to deny that.
I don't like the fact that Toronto's tallest buildings are all between Yonge and University. I would prefer it spread a bit further, to Spadina and Jarvis (200M+ towers) for example. and all new tall buildings are almost all on Yonge-York st. It definitely reduces the visual impact.
In contrast, many of Chicago's tallest and most beautiful skyscrapers are not located in the LOOP, which makes their skyline more balanced.
If the Mirvish and the Casino projects went along, it will change the game significantly as TO skyline will cease to be about the CN tower any more.
Don't get me wrong. I am still impressed by Toronto's skyline. It is quite good for the size of the city, compared with say LA, Boston, Philly or Houston. I just happen to think Chicago, NYC and Hong Kong belong to a totally different league. We don't belong up there.
Well beauty is in the eye of the beholder - I like historical buildings like the rest of them but far too often I find that if it isn't 'classical' it isn't beautiful which is a shame really.
Beauty is the eye of the beholder, but it doesn't mean it is purely subjective and there is no standard. If judged by regular people in the world, 95% of them will think Chicago's architecture is far superior to Toronto's. We should accept this fact and there is no shame. There are not many cities that can beat Chicago in terms of architecture.
Toronto when it comes to quality of building, is very mediocre. Montreal, Boston, Philadelphia all have nicer buildings in general, not to mention NYC/Chicago.
Most of the new buildings under construction are all glass condos, of which 90% are of a certain shade of blue, green or grey. I don't think with this lack of imagination we will get ahead too far when the dust is settled.
I'm not talking about comparative heights i'm talking about the iconic status of a building and in Chicago it is Willis and in NYC it is ESB.. if either of those cities didn't have these icons they would be lowered a few notches was my point! That is all....
I don't think Willis and ESB is THAT important. John Hancock and Chrysler building are equally impressive and iconic.
Quote:
Originally Posted by fusion2
Personally, I'm glad we had the Tallest freestanding structure in the world for 35 years and we still have it in the Western Hemisphere - nothing to slam there unless you are a person who see's the glass half empty when it comes to Toronto.
well, feel free to consider me as a half empty person, but by the same token the fact that Toronto never constructed any real building taller than the 298M FCP since 1976 is equally embarrassing.
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