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Toronto/Boston comparisons

kool maudit said:
if new york wouldn't crack your top 50, then your list is designed to make you appear interesting and idiosyncratic -- and not to be, you know, accurate.
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Chicago, Boston, LA, Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo, St. Louis, Kansas City, Pittsburgh and Minneapolis all have far better original stuff (Prairie school, etc.); Charleston, Providence, Portland (ME), Newport, Savannah, Richmond, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Albany, Portsmouth, Annapolis, Baltimore, Frederick, Cincinnati and Louisville all have better and far more original old stuff; Miami is more colorful, Washington has better parks and museums, San Francisco is better-sited, Portland and Seattle are more progressive and user-friendly, and places like Santa Fe, Tuscon, Asheville, Tulsa, San Antonio, Madison, New Haven, Wheeling, St. Augustine, Lexington, Denver, Des Moines, Santa Barbara, San Diego, Beauport, Dover, Oakland, Tacoma and St. Paul have done better at maintaining their local quirks, character, climate and identities.

I suppose New York is marginally more creative than Houston, architecturally. But anything here of note not the Empire State Building and its plethora of hulking peers was either designed by a German; and Chicago native; or someone who went to Paris for training and probably should have stayed.
 
The_Architect said:
You wouldn't include New York, home of the Art Deco giants and pre-war buildings that were the tallest in the world for quite some time in you top 50 but you would include Los Angeles? Uhh..
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Yes, I would include the base of Irving Gill, Greene & Greene, Neutra, Schindler, Wright's best 1920s works, and the most creative localism in North American (Walter Neff, anyone?) before I would the location where a hundred neo-fascist megaliths happen to be plonked.
 
Ladies Mile said:
Chicago, Boston, LA, Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo, St. Louis, Kansas City, Pittsburgh and Minneapolis all have far better original stuff (Prairie school, etc.); Charleston, Providence, Portland (ME), Newport, Savannah, Richmond, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Albany, Portsmouth, Annapolis, Baltimore, Frederick, Cincinnati and Louisville all have better and far more original old stuff; Miami is more colorful, Washington has better parks and museums, San Francisco is better-sited, Portland and Seattle are more progressive and user-friendly, and places like Santa Fe, Tuscon, Asheville, Tulsa, San Antonio, Madison, New Haven, Wheeling, St. Augustine, Lexington, Denver, Des Moines, Santa Barbara, San Diego, Beauport, Dover, Oakland, Tacoma and St. Paul have done better at maintaining their local quirks, character, climate and identities.

I suppose New York is marginally more creative than Houston, architecturally. But anything here of note not the Empire State Building and its plethora of hulking peers was either designed by a German; and Chicago native; or someone who went to Paris for training and probably should have stayed.
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Have you been to New York?

Do you explore cities inside a car?

Miami is a driver's paradise and I've got sweet memories of it from the time I lived there. But it's not much of a city. It's just becoming one now, really.
 
Ladies Mile said:
I suppose New York is marginally more creative than Houston, architecturally. But anything here of note not the Empire State Building and its plethora of hulking peers was either designed by a German; and Chicago native; or someone who went to Paris for training and probably should have stayed.
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Chrysler, Woolworth, 40 Wall, Metlife, Radiator Building, General Electric Building, 30 Rock. I could go on and on and on and on and on.
 
The_Architect said:
Chrysler, Woolworth, 40 Wall, Metlife, Radiator Building, General Electric Building, 30 Rock. I could go on and on and on and on and on.
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Without contradicting anything I said.

The Radiator Building and 30 Rock were by Raymond Hood, Chicago.

Metlife is by Marcel Breuer, Germany.

The others...well, let's say they're very, very big.
 
Ladies Mile said:
Without contradicting anything I said.

The Radiator Building and 30 Rock were by Raymond Hood, Chicago.

Metlife is by Marcel Breuer, Germany.

The others...well, let's say they're very, very big.
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So... the fact the buildings are IN New York doesn't make them in any way New York-ish? Man, you're pretentious. Snide. But amusing to read, in a train wreck sort of way...
 
Riverdale Rink Rat said:
So... the fact the buildings are IN New York doesn't make them in any way New York-ish? Man, you're pretentious. Snide. But amusing to read, in a train wreck sort of way...
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Is Frank Lloyd Wright a Japanese architect because he built in Tokyo?

The best architects respond to their sites in a way that can't help but reflect the location. What does it say about New York that its mode of building has always involved disregard for the surroundings?

Wright called the city "prison towers and advertisements for soap," while Louis Sullivan asked of a friend viewing Fifth Avenue "You see this parade of fake chateaus...and yet you do not laugh?"

New York has imported its major talent when it bothered with talent at all. And I'm afraid the Art Deco and Beaux Arts "classics" it generated for itself are mediocre at best (there being of course a few exceptions, such as Grand Central Terminal, a masterpiece of functionalism disguised a Beaux Arts building, and the splendid DeVinne Press Building, one of the greatest works of the 19th century).
 
Speaking of Wright I had the privilege of touring his Martin house in Buffalo this summer. The strength of his vision and the nature of the man really jumps out at you. A powerful expression. It would also be a horrible place to live. I fully understand now why the family abandoned the house after the passing of Mr. Martin (a close friend of Wright's). Wright strikes me as a man who understands the physical domain but has little interest or empathy with people.
 
UserNameToronto said:
I agree - Ladies Mile is a massive troll. Who's now on my ignore list.
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And it's pretty safe to say that most respectable architectural historians these days would regard his sopheesteecation as retrograde quackery of the sort that you find on, well...Internet message boards...
 
Ladies Mile is obviously not in a New York state of mind. Perhaps a vacation is in order... to Minneapolis?
 
Ladies Mile said:
And I'm afraid the Art Deco and Beaux Arts "classics" it generated for itself are mediocre at best (there being of course a few exceptions, such as Grand Central Terminal, a masterpiece of functionalism disguised a Beaux Arts building, and the splendid DeVinne Press Building, one of the greatest works of the 19th century).
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General Electric Building - Gothic and Deco, designed by Cross and Cross: a NYC based architectural firm.

40 Wall Street - Deco, designed by H. Craig Severance: a NYC based architect, tallest in the world for a period

Chrysler Building (the most famous of all and arguably the best skyscraper in NYC) - Deco, designed by William Van Alen: a NYC based architect, one of the finest skyscrapers in the world and world's tallest for a period

Just 3 examples of many.
 
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