San Antonio's Downtown Skyline: Nice or Ugly? (Vidor, Howe: construction, architecture)

[Chaka]

Originally Posted by GWhopper

Actually, I think it is directly across from the St. Mary's school. But I could be wrong. Maybe it's a property once owned by them.

It's not across the street - that's the church which is still an active parish. The building is directly adjacent to the old St Mary's school. I'm not sure if it was actually a part of the school or not.

I used to walk by daily on my way to lunch

[CreekKnoll]

Investors and builders shy away from building anything taller than 40 stories and of expensive material in fear that San Antonio will populate those buildings with Section 8! Doh!

[SanAntoQT]

Originally Posted by GWhopper

Actually, I think it is directly across from the St. Mary's school. But I could be wrong. Maybe it's a property once owned by them.

Are you talking about the old Petroleum Building on the same side of the street as St. Mary's School? There was a driveway separating the school from that building. Directly across the street is a church.

[dvlpr]

Originally Posted by tgannaway89

You have no clue what you are talking about. Are you aware of the term green skyscraper? If anything the skyscrapers built today are 100 times better for the enviroment than those built 20 years ago. Not to mention that skyscrapers are much better for the enviroment than urban sprawl.

Actually, I do know what I'm talking about.

First of all, my response said nothing about being "green". I was talking about good urbanism, referring to how vibrant, sustainable, beautiful cities are planned and built. And I gave facts showing how skyscrapers are destructive to good urbansim (which you didn't address). It is important to understand what "good urbansim" means, because the idea that our only choices are "skyscrapers" or "urban sprawl" is simply ignorant.

Aside from my listed reasons, here’s some more why skyscrapers are bad for cities:

- Skyscrapers are almost always prohibitively expensive, except in the most expensive real estate markets in the world. This prevents most people from being able to afford to live downtown, which actually encourages urban sprawl, and forces most skyscrapers to be built in conjunction with massive, ugly parking structures.

- Skyscrapers typically require abnormally large building sites, which interrupt the human scale of the neighborhood in which they’re built.

- Skyscrapers take massive amounts of energy to operate (heating & cooling, multiple elevators, etc.) and maintain.

- Skyscrapers negatively impact the amount of natural light that reaches the street (the preeminent public space of cities).

Care to dispute any of these?

And with regards to your "theory" (according to you, today's skyscrapers are "100 times better for the environment"): How so? Based on what?

There is LEED-certified construction happening in SA………..in low-rise buildings………..in conjunction with New Urbanist planning principles (Full Goods Building at Pearl, the new Rackspace HQ)……….but hey………what do I know?

[SanAntoQT]

Personally, I don't pay much attention to skylines and don't get why people get their boxers in a bunch over it. They're a bunch of buildings that centuries from now will be non-existent anyway.

[ryneone]

What is the point of the troll threads. I mean we have killed this topic so many times.

[tgannaway89]

Originally Posted by dvlpr

Actually, I do know what I'm talking about.

First of all, my response said nothing about being "green". I was talking about good urbanism, referring to how vibrant, sustainable, beautiful cities are planned and built. And I gave facts showing how skyscrapers are destructive to good urbansim (which you didn't address). It is important to understand what "good urbansim" means, because the idea that our only choices are "skyscrapers" or "urban sprawl" is simply ignorant.

Aside from my listed reasons, here’s some more why skyscrapers are bad for cities:

- Skyscrapers are almost always prohibitively expensive, except in the most expensive real estate markets in the world. This prevents most people from being able to afford to live downtown, which actually encourages urban sprawl, and forces most skyscrapers to be built in conjunction with massive, ugly parking structures.

Yes they are pricey. That isn't too say that all downtown living has to be pricey. By combining retail, office, and residential space we are able to save a lot of money. Not all parking structures have to be ugly. They can be well-designed and aesthetically appealing.

- Skyscrapers typically require abnormally large building sites, which interrupt the human scale of the neighborhood in which they’re built.

As opposed to 3,000 home subdivisions built atop aquifers?

- Skyscrapers take massive amounts of energy to operate (heating & cooling, multiple elevators, etc.) and maintain.

They require no more energy than large-scale subdivisions and the string of mini-malls/shopping centers attached to them. We are also required to run ugly telephone poles all across the city so that each subdivision can be powered.

- Skyscrapers negatively impact the amount of natural light that reaches the street (the preeminent public space of cities).

Yes, but given that to an extent we already have skyscrapers it wouldn't be a major change. I can see how it has devastated Houston . What about the light-pollution caused by all the urban sprawl?

Care to dispute any of these?

And with regards to your "theory" (according to you, today's skyscrapers are "100 times better for the environment"): How so? Based on what?

We can build skyscrapers today to be much more energy efficient that we could have dreamed of doing in the past.

There is LEED-certified construction happening in SA………..in low-rise buildings………..in conjunction with New Urbanist planning principles (Full Goods Building at Pearl, the new Rackspace HQ)……….but hey………what do I know?

And every building in Town Center at La Cantera will seek LEED-certification. Way to go SA, we are finally catching up with everyone else when it comes to building green!

At least we don't have to spend billions to fund 20-lane highways (many atop the aquifer) to connect our CBD to the ever-growing subdivisions outside 1604. Wait... we do that.

[oldmanshirt]

Oh brother

[Hyun-Soo]

The architecture of the skyscrapers downtown seem so bland to me... that's my personal opinion. However it seems that a lot of people in San Antonio don't really have an opinion on it.

Note: I am not saying that the downtown is bland, it's one of the most vibrant I have seen for a city its size. It's just the skyscrapers are disappointing looking and much are an eyesore (Both Marriot Buildings and now Grand Hyatt)...

I'm hoping that the Vidorra under construction will bring something new (being tall and slender), however it's toward to eastern side of downtown across I-35 from downtown.

[ryneone]

Originally Posted by Hyun-Soo

The architecture of the skyscrapers downtown seem so bland to me... that's my personal opinion. However it seems that a lot of people in San Antonio don't really have an opinion on it.

Note: I am not saying that the downtown is bland, it's one of the most vibrant I have seen for a city its size. It's just the skyscrapers are disappointing looking and much are an eyesore (Both Marriot Buildings and now Grand Hyatt)...

I'm hoping that the Vidorra under construction will bring something new (being tall and slender), however it's toward to eastern side of downtown across I-37 from downtown.

Look at those bland buildings up close.