Most Unique Use in a Mixed-Use High Rise?

[pdxstreetcar]

What are some of the most unique uses/programs in a high rise skyscraper?

[amaddry]

2 examples I can think of - Frank Lloyd Wright's Price tower in Oklahoma is a mixed use building that has both apartments and office spaces on each floor. Normally these 2 uses are stacked one on on top of each other, not mixed together on every floor - so you could live and work on the same floor which is a cool idea. And the church/office building in Chicago where the church is sitting on top of an office building.

[brickell]

Marina City or the Civic Opera Building, both in Chicago, come to mind.

[pdxstreetcar]

thanks for the examples, what's this church/office building in chicago called?

[CGII]

The Masonic Temple Building.

[Eigenwelt]

there are a few churches on top of skyscrapers in chicago.

How about Hugh Ferris' skyscraper bridges?

http://www.arch.columbia.edu/DDL/DDLF/films/ferris/images/ferris.jpg

[amaddry]

The mixed church / office building I was thinking of is called the "Chicago Temple Building" you can see it described on wikipedia at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Temple_Building

I have a publication in the "Pamphlet Architecture" series called "Hybrid Buildings" that describes about 30 - 40 various mixed use buildings, most of which are highrises.

[pdxstreetcar]

The Chicago Temple Building looks like a great building and appears to be very unique.

Some other towers with interesting uses in them is the Time Warner Center... Jazz at Lincoln Center (in addition to the urban shopping center, residential, hotel, office, parking) and the former Downtown Athletic Club in Lower Manhattan with its pools, squash courts, gymnasiums, boxing ring, bowling alley, mini-golf course, tennis courts, restaurants, lounges, locker rooms and guest rooms which unfortunately has been gutted and converted to condos. Theres also the new WaMu Center in Seattle with the Seattle Art Museum incorporated into the lower part of the building.

[Alpha]

Henninger Turm, Frankfurt/Main, Germany ( http://en.structurae.de/structures/data/index.cfm?ID=s0011033 ), a silo with an observation deck. I believe this is unique.

[X-fib]

John Hancock Center in Chicago is certainly the most prominent truly mixed use building that comes to mind.

[CGII]

Henninger Turm, Frankfurt/Main, Germany ( http://en.structurae.de/structures/data/index.cfm?ID=s0011033 ), a silo with an observation deck. I believe this is unique.
You don't find that it's painted like a mug of beer unique, too? ;)

[mhays]

As pdxstreetcar says, the Seattle Art Museum addition (onto a 1980s Venturi design) is an interesting combo with the new WaMu Center. Basically, a 16-story wing of this 42-story bank HQ has WaMu offices at the top, and initially a few floors of SAM expansion space at the bottom, including a new main entry. Eventually SAM will occupy around 12 floors including a lot of double-height spaces. The offices are open, and the museum should open early in 2007.

Hong Kong mixes uses in interesting ways. Some modern towers appear to be offices over ground level retail, but several of the lower "office" levels will have odd stuff like internet cafes or restaurants.

On the Kowloon side, there are several older high-rises (often 15-20 floors?) where each floor (or part of each floor) is a different youth hostel or cheap hotel, with lots of other funky uses mixed in. I haven't been in these, but apparently a hostel can be down the hall from a restaurant and a small manufacturing operation.

[Kroy Wen]

Here on the Upper East Side of Manhattan there's a 30something tower with a bottle shop/dog gym at ground level (combined) as well as a green grocer built out into the courtyard as a two story glass shed (they have a seasonal restaurant)- a community dance theater above, and floors 5-7 are veterinarians (take my dogs and cat there)- floor eight is a long-stay kennel (K-9 Hotel).

Also part of the base (the tower sits above/incorporated into two small warehouses), is a kosher bakery with operations up to floor seven. Above that it gets murky- looking at the directory as I have for the past couple decades- you have a choice of residential apartments, acupuncturists, animal psychologists, independant publishers, real estate brokers and the Icelandic Bureau of Culture- I assume this is a phone bank and mail center. The top floor is a rentable hall for functions with terraces.

The building is just down the block from the HQ of the ASPCA (which explains all the animal services).

This type of amalgamation is common in New York

[Kroy Wen]

Personally I'm quite fond of the Jin Mao- shopping mall at the base, offices to the 50th and then the open-atrium hotel from the 53rd to the 87th.

I suppose this isn't quite unique- but the height and the beauty of it make it quite so.;)

Otherwise, MoMA in NYC is another interesting tower complex.