I’m a fan of skyscrapers but not of heights. Gravity is always cause for concern.
I’ll go to the observation deck with you, but only for that giddy survivor’s high that comes when we return to the ground floor alive. And that’s where I can best admire a tall building – at street level or an even safer distance, like two miles away where it’s impossible for a rogue ice chunk or a clumsy, un-tethered window washer to fall on me.
Yes, skyscrapers activate my imagination, though not always in the best way. That’s why I’m concerned to see that the slow economic recovery has re-invigorated efforts to build the Chicago Spire.
Frankly, the project sets off multiple personal alarms.
When construction halted in 2008 because the world economy collapsed, Chicagoans were left with an enormous open pit on a prime piece of waterfront real estate. In my universe, open pits are bad. Gravity runs rampant there, and I consider it a miracle that the hole has remained in place for six years without becoming the scene of a terrible Timmy-in-the-well scenario. Construction keeps the hole open rather than filled up with pulverized rubber chunks, recycled packing envelopes, and other soft-landing material, which is what I would prefer.
I also find it unsettling that the building’s shape twists so severely from top to bottom. A similar building by the same architect in Malmo, Sweden, is said to look like it is tilting at an odd angle when viewed from certain perspectives. That’s an understatement for this Escher-like structure, which comes with the feeling of vertigo built in. Boxy may be boring, but I like my skyscrapers to be nice and grounded-looking. Once we start twisting around the shape of acceptable living spaces, I’m afraid stability will go out of fashion. It’s a slippery slope.
And by the way, a slippery slope is also very troubling for the gravity-obsessed. That’s why I’m focusing on skyscraper news rather than watching the Winter Olympics.
Finally, I worry that the addition of The Spire to Chicago’s skyline will suddenly make it OK for new buildings to mimic the shape and design of power tools, which are unsettling devices especially in the hands of amateurs like me. Sure, this one is an innocent drill bit. But what’s to prevent other designers from framing up towers that appear to be lathes, table saws and orbital sanders? I could not feel comfortable in a city that featured, say, a Pneumatic Torque Wrench as part of its skyline. The urban environment is noisy and dusty enough!
What’s your favorite (or least favorite) skyscraper?
Trail Baboon 
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Perfect!. Thanks, Holly.
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Good morning. This skyscraper that tops my list of those buildings is the Empire State Building. I think of it as the classic skyscraper. Some of the more more recently built ones have interesting designs. Those newer ones do not have the romantic history that I associate with the Empire State Building. The Chrysler Building is a close second on my list with it’s interesting decorative design. I guess I like the older ones because I am also attracted to an older Minneapolis skyscraper, the Foshay Tower.
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I have a certain nostalgic fondness for the IDS building. It’s not a pretty building and it’s starting to look a bit tired among all the other tall buildings that have sprung up around it. But it is the first Really Big Building from my youth. When it was built, it was the first (as I recall) skyscraper in Mpls to be taller than the Foshay tower. I remember going in when it was still fairly new and taking the super fast elevators to the top floor observation deck with my cousins and grandfather – it became a treat along with going to see the Christmas display at Dayton’s over Thanksgiving break. The best part was probably jumping up while the elevator was going up (or down) to test relative movement and the weird feeling in your stomach as that elevator whooshed you up or down. Since it was such a standout in the relative prairie of downtown, it became a landmark to look for on the ride home from visiting the cousins in Brainerd (“I spy the IDS!” we’d sing out – you could be farther out of town then and see it). Plus as as added bonus, you could say you had been someplace that was filmed for national TV whenever Mary Tyler Moore came on and you caught the Crystal Court on the opening credits. One of the good things about being a kid in the 70s: the IDS.
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Interesting, Anna. I knew a guy who worked downtown. When the IDS tower was being built, he got nervous because he just didn’t like tall buildings. At some point he declared, “This town isn’t big enough for both of us!” He quit his job and moved to a small town.
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Funny, Dale – you sound suspiciously like BSO Rafferty!
I’m with Jim, I like the Foshay Tower, but mainly because it’s the skyscraper I’ve been most recently in (I’m fickle about skyscrapers). We took my step-son’s family up to the Observation Deck in July – I had never been there before – and while you couldn’t see as much as we did from the former IDS’ deck, we could see quite a lot… just had to ignore the interruptions in the skyline made by those other skyscrapers.
Husband’s dad’s first job in Mpls (circa 1940) was being one of those window washers for the Foshay Tower. I’ll have to ask if there are any stories.
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Yes BiR, it is entirely possible that BSO Rafferty whispered these things to me while I was half awake. He might have guided my fingers on the keys, or I his.
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I’m partial to the CN Tower in Toronto. It has a way cool observation deck that offers great views of the town and Lake Ontario. The neatest feature is a clear glass section of the floor that allows one to see straight down 1,122 feet to the ground. The first time we visited we were able to spot our car in the parking lot right below us.
The tower also features a rotating restaurant which is a nice place to eat providing you don’t suffer from motion sickness, in which case your money might be wasted on a meal not long destined for your innards.
I also share a sentimental connection to the IDS Tower because my sister-in-law was married on New Year’s Eve 1980 and the reception was in the 50th floor observation deck restaurant.
Chris in Owatonna
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Well, the ND state capitol building is about the tallest building in the state. I don’t know if any of the bank buildings in downtown Fargo are taller. I don’t really like the capitol building. It is boring.
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I don’t have a favorite skyscraper now, but as a child it was a competition between the Bonaventure Hotel and the Sears Tower. The Bonaventure is only 33 stories so not much of a skyscraper, but it was local (in LA where I grew up) and has these cool outside elevators, so it was pretty neat. Every other summer we would take the train from LA to Indiana, with a six hour layover in Chicago. And every trip when the train was on time, we would go up the Sears Tower, a true skyscraper. The view on a clear day was always amazing.
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Wow, there are two Sears towers? 🙂
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Huh? How do you arrive at that, BiR?
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She must be seeing double today,
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One (formerly) in Mpls, and the one in Chicago. Didn’t they call that the Sears tower, where Midtown Global Market is now?
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Maybe some people called it the Sears tower, but I think it was more commonly called The Sears Building. but I could be wrong.
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That’s funny, BiR. When Hans first came to Minneapolis, he lived not too far from the old Sears building on Lake Street. He had been here about three weeks when I met him. On our second date he showed me some photos he had taken, one of them was of the Sears building. When I asked why he had taken a picture of that, he told me that it was the world headquarters of Sears. I had to tell him that it wasn’t. We still laugh about some of his early impressions of the US. Ask him about pilot lights on an old stove sometime.
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for guiding in the flights?
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Well, I will go a little off convention (what a surprise) and say that in spite of the fact that I proposed to my ex there, my favorite is the Eiffel Tower. I don’t know if anyone else considers it an actual ‘sky scraper’ but I guess I do. Also defying convention, I’d say that my second favorite would be the Pyramids on the Giza plateau.
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I think it qualifies as a skyscraper because of the elevators, tgith. Yikes!
http://www.atkielski.com/PhotoGallery/Paris/Eiffel/EiffelElevatorsSmall.html
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I worked on the 18th floor of the IDS building from 1980 to l986. It is a place near and dear to my heart; there was always something going on. Lunch in the restaurant overlooking the Crystal Court was fun, but rather pricey, and the observation deck and the restaurant on the 50th floor for special occasions were a treat. Because the building itself has so much glass, the interior was light and made for a very nice work environment. My office was the nicest office I’ve ever worked in, a spacious corner office with a great view. I recall racing up the fifty flights of stairs as a participant in some annual fund raising event, great community spirit. Those were the days.
I also really like the Wells Fargo Center (Norwest Center when it was built). The law firm I worked for moved into it when it was first completed, and I had a chance to meet Cesar Pelli, the very distinguished architect who created it, when we were in the final stages of negotiating our lease. It’s a beautiful building viewed from the outside, I think, but it lacks the public spaces that I find so attractive in the IDS tower.
In my youth, I recall the first highrises built in Bellahøj near Copenhagen sometime during the 1950s. We thought they were spectacular. It was a cluster of eleven-story apartment buildings inspired by Le Corbusier. No one would give them a second glance today.
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When I think of tall buildings, the first thing that comes to mind is an incident in the 1980’s when I worked briefly at the Pioneer Press-Dispatch, on 5th Street. One day as I was coming in to work, a photographer was dashing toward the door calling out to someone else, “Somebody just took a header off the First National Bank Building.” He was carrying some expensive camera equipment as he raced to the scene, although of course the newspaper never prints anything really graphic.
A decade or so later I was working in downtown Minneapolis, and a guy broke a window on an upper floor of the IDS tower and plunged to his death through the glass ceiling of the inner atrium.
Combine that with a lifelong fear of heights, and it’s probably no surprise that tall buildings don’t hold a lot of charm for me.
Sometimes people who live in suburban or rural areas tell me they’re leery of walking alone in the Twin Cities metro area. I suppose that in any densely populated city there is an increased risk of violence, but in my experience people seem more intent on doing harm to themselves than to me. Or anyone else.
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Not really a fan of skyscrapers.
http://youtu.be/WmxPmwA5tPU
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Nice.
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i couldnt get on this morning . hollys song had a weird thing and it wouldnt let me in. i tried to bring in the
https://www.google.com/search?q=architectural+wonders+of+the+world&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=dEz8UurSKOmdyQGayICABg&ved=0CDAQsAQ&biw=1366&bih=624
i am a big fan of the new architects but oddly i had the pyramids and the eiffel tower on y list also tgith. my ride to the top of the eiffel tower was a memorable occasion. pyramids are on my bucket list. but… i think it is so cool that the oil guys with money to burn build the tallest coolest buildings they can. i love them and the chinese, wow they are architect fans over there. i love the gehry buildings, the guggenheim, the moden stuff but again the sears tower was the source of my great 4th of july story when i waited for the fireworks to go off from the observation and they were all the size of erasers way down there going off on like the 20th floor.
i love the drill bit feel of the new chicago offering. i hope they get it built. very cool. i dont get to chcago as often as i used to but i do like that town. a new splash would be wonderful.
im not really avioding picking one but the empire state and the one in dubai are a close tie. thats almost picking one.
i do love the public space in the ids. i went to my daughters choir performance there this christmas and it was wonderful and my attourney just moved out of hs office on the 43rd floor. it was a great view. i
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