I like mine old school. The Chrysler Building in NYC is my favorite.
I also like the Petronas Towers in KL. VERY stylish for ultra tall buildings compared to, say, the Sears Tower. They look amazing in real life.
Honorable mention, and not a building everyone knows about goes to the Williams Tower in Houston. It is very unique because it is not in the “downtown” area. In fact, it may be the tallest building in the world not in a business district. It’s size is striking since it dwarfs everything around it.
Worlds creepiest skyscraper? (and perhaps the world’s creepiest building) gotta be Ryugyong in North Korea. Weird man! I would love to see that in real life someday.
One of my sources of kudos from people astounded by the depths and width of my knowledge is knowing that “that real pretty skyscraper” is The Chrysler Building. It seems to be Spain’s favourite skyscraper, but nobody knows its name.
I have a picture frame I got off a street vendor in NYC: lady Libby, Flatiron (another favourite), Chrysler and Empire. I keep having to tell visitors that no, they are not allowed to take it away! It’s all mine, mine, mine, So, There!
Most skyscrapers in Barcelona and Madrid are outside business districts. All the unique ones are. There’s one in Madrid that’s all public housing; very strange, it’s got a hole in the middle. I don’t remember what it’s called but it was in a magazine recently, I’ll see if I Mom still has it and if so look for pics.
Chrysler Building, NYC
Petronas Towers, Kuala Lumpur
Burj al Arab, Dubai
Jin Mao Building, Pudong, Shanghai
Hong Kong Shanghai Bank Building, Hong Kong (weird, like the back of a fridge, but grows on you)
The Gherkin, London
Empire State Building, NYC
Central Plaza, Hong Kong (because I used to work on the 57th floor)
I may be biased, but I love the Sears Tower. It’s much more impressive in person than in pictures. I used to ride the el home from work everyday, and when I would sit in a backward facing seat, on the south side of the westbound train, I could look back on it as we traveled away from the downtown area. When you get a good distance away, it just rises up and towers (ha!) over everything else. It has a really powerful, monolithic feel to it. I like its modern style and its asymmetry.
My favorite is the one that was NEVER built: Frank Lloyd Wright’s “Mile High” skyscraper, which he proposed in 1951! man, imagine a penthouse apartment, at the 500 story-above the clouds! And the gentle swaying-as the top moves 6 inches in the wind!! :eek:
Just recently I spent a couple hours at the website where these links are and discovered quite a few new tall buildings I had never known existed. I really enjoyed browsing through them.
If you drive East on Roosevelt Rd. from the western suburbs you can see the Sears Tower from about 20 miles away. I always thought that was so cool when I was a kid; being able to see the city from about 20 miles away.
I like the Stelco Tower in Hamilton, Ontario, but for an unusual reason. Before they put it up, they said they’d come up with this kind of steel that would turn all kinds of beautiful hues after exposure to the weather. That’s not how it worked out, though. I guess Stelco developers hadn’t counted on acid rain from…wait for it…Stelco (!) falling on the building for years. So what happened is that it just about immediately turned rusty brown and stayed that way. Looks impressive, though, and there’s a nice view from the roof. You can’t go up on the roof, but I’ve been there.
I’ve always been partial to the Terminal Tower. 2nd tallest in the world when it was built, and the tallest in the world outside of NYC from 1930-1967. The Terminal Tower was also the inspiration for the Daily Planet building of Superman fame.
My favorite is the Bank of China tower in Hong Kong, designed by I.M. Pei. It is elegant and strong-looking at the same time, rare for modern architecture. In 2009, however, my favorite will probably change to the recently-approved Fordham Spire in Chicago.
A bit of local bias here, but I do like the Transamerica Building. It’s at the base of Columbus Street, and I love driving on Columbus heading away from the Wharf on a foggy night and watching this huge, pointy building appear out of nowhere directly in front of you.
I also think the Chrysler Building is gorgeous, probbaly the most beautiful building in New York. The ESB, I thought, was quite disappointing.
In Chicago, I liked the Tribune Tower and the Wrigley Building. The Sears Tower I would be more fond of if it were elsewhere. I do like the sheer size and the blockiness of it, but there is just so many beautiful buildings in Chicago that it’s overshadowed. I alos like the Hancock Tower there; kind of a simple, industrial elegance.
I really like the Tribune Tower mentioned above, but my favorite in Chicago is the Reliant Building (now the Burnham Hotel) by Daniel Burnham. A near perfect example of Chicago Style architecture, which is really where the whole concept of ‘skyscraper’ began.
I also quite like the Jin Mao Building by Skidmore Owings & Merrill, in Shanghai. It is an interesting blend of Asian and American influences.
And I have to put in one sentimental favorite, the Ulmer Münster. 161 meters (about 530 feet) to the top (by Wikipedia’s rules it’s still the tallest church and was the world’s tallest building from 1890-1908), and for a couple Euros you can climb the steps to a very small balcony at 143 meters. I always though of cathedrals as massive, substantial buildings, but the spire is open and airy (which, when you’re climbing to the top, is not necessarily a good thing). Here’s a good picture of the spire where you can see some of the light coming through; and if you make it to about 100 meters, you have this to take you to the very top. It took 513 years to build (what with wars and all), and you look at the thing and think “damn, they made good time.”
