Skyscrapers thread: why doesn't europe have many of those?

[Az]

skyscarpers and in my opinion they should have stopped building them then since they could have never improved on this

You know, they have a functional role, as well.

[Spiffor]

NOW the Woolworth Building is something that looks good.
Not like the ugly big cubes behind. What's that horror ?

[gsmoove23]

Its even better up close.



The function would seem to be precipitating mass congestion and is very arguable. Living in Staten Island though, I can appreciate the view from afar.

[Spiffor]

The Woolworth Building is similar to a cathedral
A skyscraper oughta not be some anonymous cube, unlike the crap in the background of your first pic

[Az]

The WTC was looking good up close.

[Spiffor]

I never dared approach such ugliness

[Az]

Why does all of downtown Paris look the same?

Look as the buildings in this pic follow the exact same pattern as the one in the 1st.

This one's a bit different. It was recently repainted.

Nice street. too bad all the buildings look the same.

wow, how original:

Yep. It was always that way:

I could swear all those photos were taken in the same spot!

Bleh

At least the people are interesting, colourful and different, BECAUSE THE BUILDING SURELY ARE NOT!

OMG OMG OMG, the buildings here are actually OF DIFFERENT HEIGHTS! Sound the alarm! Time to build some more floors for that poor chap!

A dude on a monocycle. Notice the continuation of the endless parisian hive in the background.



I could go forever. Actually, not forever, but just by posting pics of every building in Paris.

[Proteus_MST]

Essen, where I´m living, has built some High Rise buildings since the 90s.
Of course we haven´t such remarkable and big skyscrapers as some american cities cities or even Frankfurt, but it´s still a beautiful skyline



Probably the reason why Europe doesn´t have so many skyscrapers is, that it is much more expensive to build a Skyscraper than to just build a second Officebuilding somewhere else (Landprices aren´t very expensive).
So here in Germany just those companys who have really lots of money, which is companies on the Energy, Telecommunication or Banking Sector build skyscrapers, whereas most other companies prefer smaller Office buildings in the suburbs of the city.

[Az]

Land Values are low? I thought that Land Values in europe was rediculously high, esp. in the cities.

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by Azazel
Land Values are low? I thought that Land Values in europe was rediculously high, esp. in the cities.

In the cities yes,
but most of the corporations tend to have their administrative Buildings and Offices rather in the suburbs or in industrial areas, where Land values are lower.
The cities themselves are mostly dominated by Shopping areas with very few offices.

So most of the high rise buildings in Essen for example belong to RWE (Energy Corporation), some major Banks, the Telekom (german Telecommunications Corporation) and the large building in the right half of the skyline is the Administration of the City.

Most Corporations who have offices directly within the city have them on a renting basis and often share the building with shops and appartments.

[Az]

That's somewhat understandable considering the current economic situation.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Azazel:

Paris is all the same and ugly. Give me some nice skyscrapers!

[monolith94]

Boston:

[monolith94]

I LOVE Boston!

[Master Zen]

Skyscrapers are cool when they are actually well-designed, building them for the sake of building them is just pretty dull especially those 1950-1970s international-style blocky buildings which have absolutely no personallity.

In places like Europe or Latin America is is very difficult to have a "skyscraper" core because of all the historic buildings in downtowns. I think Paris got it right by having skyscrapers concentrated in a seprate area from the historic core, namely the La Defense sector. This gives Paris a very dual-nature skyline. On the other hand, a city like Boston besides the fact that the skyscrapers are pretty dull (besides the John Hanckok tower and that clock-tower in the last pic which looks very nice) totally ruin the historic core (the expressway doesn't really help either). I'm very much amazed at how easily North American cities ruin the historic essense of their cities instead of making the business district separate.

London also has the same problem, skycrapers in the City of London build every other place. Good thing they made Canary Wharf, hopefully that will leave the rest of the city alone. Same problem with Mexico City, all our skyscrapers are built here and there, no order, no "skyscraper core" which would not only look much more beautiful but would have preserved some of the historic buildings which were knocked down.