Red October
Senior Member
I can understand someone not loving to live in, or the hustle and bustle or crime of New York, but trying to downplay the skyscrapers and say Detroit, Minneapolis, Cleveland, etc are more relevant? Come on..
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Toronto/Boston comparisons
- Thread starter Ladies Mile
- Start date
I can understand someone not loving to live in, or the hustle and bustle or crime of New York, but trying to downplay the skyscrapers and say Detroit, Minneapolis, Cleveland, etc are more relevant? Come on..
Ladies Mile
Active Member
Neither of the first two have any interest for me personally, but I can't imagine anyone finding 40 Wall of interest for other than historical reasons. It is easily the dullest building of its period.
The Chrysler Building is one of the few Art Deco "icons" that actually approaches architectural greatness. But Van Alen designed that, a small shop on Fifth and....nothing else.
Bogtrotter
Senior Member
C'mon- you don't think Des Moines has better architecture than New York...? 
Ladies Mile
Active Member
I am speaking from an architectural standpoint. How is this not clear? And Detroit, Minneapolis, Cleveland did far more to embrace the new forms in the general mode of building. Compare the Guardian Building in Detroit to any Art Deco in New York, or Cleveland's Terminal Tower to the City Hall Annex by McKim, Mead and White.
Ladies Mile
Active Member
So anyone who points out that the built form of a place is lacking dislikes that place?
All righty.
Red October
Senior Member
Terminal Tower was designed by a Chicago architect, and is very similar IMO to the Wrigley Building.
The Guardian Building was designed by a local architect, but is very similar to quite a few buildings found in New York.
I'm not downplaying them at all either, just putting them to the same standards you seem to be putting on NYC buildings.
Ladies Mile
Active Member
Whatever.
Ladies Mile
Active Member
BTW, speaking outside of architecture but very much within urbanism, New York did have perhaps the greatest bridge architects of the world as home team players and also scored in being the testing ground for the new park design via Vaux & Olmstead. I would suggest Hugh Ferris as a true local visionary, although I think of him more as a great artist of architectural possibility and abstract form than as an architect.
Ladies Mile
Active Member
Short version of what could be a long essay:
Terminal Tower is an object in the round and completely controls its space. Wrigley is and does not.
The Guardian Building employs color and local artisanry in a way that no New York building does.
Bogtrotter
Senior Member
No of course not. Actually I'm not certain what exactly you are asserting to be honest.
Ladies Mile
Active Member
New York is a great center of culture--but not architectural innovation. Its great buildings reflect developments elsewhere and were usually designed elsewhere; its famous buildings have something of the set-piece about them--they are sets, not habitats.
adma
Superstar
I think Ladies Mile is nostalgic for a pre-postmodern-era notion of true architectural discrimination--Mad Men-era architectural historiography, IOW...
Ladies Mile
Active Member
kool maudit
Active Member
it's a very particular refusal to accept the synthesizing aspect of new york's genius.
it wasn't uncommon in 1910, but it is now.
it wasn't uncommon in 1910, but it is now.
adma
Superstar
A little bit of both--or at least, a longing for a time before touchy-feely relativism and pluralism and whatever else, uh, "corrupted" the picture.
Sort of like a symphony/opera purist who thinks everything went downhill once the likes of Dylan and Lennon were embraced as "equals"...