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Just got back from Toronto and must say the overall city Skyline is incredible. Some could argue the GTA has more cranes up they almost anywhere in the world. Last time I saw that many cranes across the entire GTA was when I last visited Dubai.
Very true...Toronto is second to Dubai in terms of construction cranes....
Seattle versus Toronto ....is apples and oranges....
Toronto dwarfs Seattle
Toronto CN Tower dwarfs Seattle Tower
Like others have said....Seattle skyline is more recognizable to Americans...
Toronto's skyline is more recognizable to the rest of the world....
And that's not really saying much....
Neither city is a...NYC ...Paris....London....Tokyo...in terms of stature
and recognizability....
I don't think I could begin to tell you what Tokyo's skyline looks like. Thinking on this, there are simply few recognizable skylines for most Americans. There are some with a recognizable unique feature. But as far as a collection of regular buildings that you could pick out the silhouette to, it's probably limited to NYC, Chicago, LA, Hong Kong, London, probably a couple others. At least for most Americans. Otherwise you are just picking whether the Eiffel Tower is more recognizable than Mount Fuji, or the CN Tower is more recognizable than the Space Needle.
Toronto easily. Not even close. The CN tower is way more Iconic than anything Seattle has.
CN tower is a concrete knockoff of the Space Needle more than a decade later. For that reason alone the Space Needle is more iconic. I'll grant that the CN tower is very tall.
The Space Needle inspired the Jetsons and the subsequent modern knockoffs of the space dish/sphere on a stick towers across the world.
Seattle skyline looking south toward Mount Rainier, Own photo 2021
Space needle looking west towards Olympics. Own photo.
Rainy day, own photo 2021. The Space Needle also ages way better than concrete towers and doesn't feel dated compared to the CN tower. A testament to its original mid-century modernist design.
Space Needle was not the first tower of its kind... Far from it.
Give examples please that are more iconic and in pop culture than Space Needle built before the Space Needle since WWI. The only one I can think of is the one in Stuttgart Germany built 6 years before the Space Needle. I would say the Space Needle is a way more original design compared to the CN Tower with far greater cultural impact as the latter is extremely generic. The Space Needle also debuted as part of the World's Fair in 1962, at the end of an era when people still took World's Fairs seriously. A lot of people across the world saw it and I think led to the rush of cities that ended up building TV towers with observatory decks and restaurants within years of the Space Needle being built. The Danube Tower, Berlin Tower, CN Tower, Reunion Tower etc all came after the Space Needle.
Iwao Takamoto, a layout and design artist for The Jetsons told The New York Times in 2005 that the Space Needle "inspired the ‘skypad’ apartment buildings [in the cartoon]."
Toronto's size and importance doesn't matter that much for skyline recognizability. It flies under the radar. James Bond and Ethan Hunt race around London and Shanghai, not Toronto.
The CN tower is the OG sphere tower and it's 3x taller and far more recognizable than the space needle
The CN tower is not at all the original sphere tower. It is in fact one of the most generic towers in existence and can be confused for half a dozen towers across the world, most built before the CN tower.
Give examples please that are more iconic and in pop culture than Space Needle built before the Space Needle since WWI. The only one I can think of is the one in Stuttgart Germany built 6 years before the Space Needle. I would say the Space Needle is a way more original design compared to the CN Tower with far greater cultural impact as the latter is extremely generic. The Space Needle also debuted as part of the World's Fair in 1962, at the end of an era when people still took World's Fairs seriously. A lot of people across the world saw it and I think led to the rush of cities that ended up building TV towers with observatory decks and restaurants within years of the Space Needle being built. The Danube Tower, Berlin Tower, CN Tower, Reunion Tower etc all came after the Space Needle.
Iwao Takamoto, a layout and design artist for The Jetsons told The New York Times in 2005 that the Space Needle "inspired the ‘skypad’ apartment buildings [in the cartoon]."
Not surprised about the Jetsons...it is a 1962 cartoon ...Seattle Tower was completed in
the same year...The Seattle Tower was inspired by the Stuttgart Tower.
You forgot the Calgary Tower ....it's slightly taller than the Seattle....now that's a
generic tower....I personally think the CN Tower has some style...it has a "swoop" to it
with glass all the way up....not just a generic solid concrete shaft...
msybe you haven't seen it up close.
On a personal note, I remember way back in July 1975 ....my family missed a flight connection at the Toronto airport...so having hours until the next flight ....my dad rented a car rather than sitting around the airport being bored....well, I'll never forget seeing that enormously tall tower from the Gardiner Expressway...it wasn't totally completed yet but almost ...I had never seen anything that impressively tall before and I had been to NYC in 1972...went up the Empire State Building and saw the World Trade Center under construction in the distance. Don't forget...the CN Tower was the worlds tallest free standing structure for 32 years.
CN tower is a concrete knockoff of the Space Needle more than a decade later. For that reason alone the Space Needle is more iconic. I'll grant that the CN tower is very tall.
The Space Needle inspired the Jetsons and the subsequent modern knockoffs of the space dish/sphere on a stick towers across the world.
Seattle skyline looking south toward Mount Rainier, Own photo 2021
Space needle looking west towards Olympics. Own photo.
Rainy day, own photo 2021. The Space Needle also ages way better than concrete towers and doesn't feel dated compared to the CN tower. A testament to its original mid-century modernist design.
The CN tower is iconic and anchors one of the world's famous skylines. Space needle is a toy in comparison and not even a focus of the Seattle skyline.
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