17 most beautiful skylines

[MolsonExport]

Perth and Milwaukee don't belong on that list. I've been to both; nice cities and decent skylines, but do they belong in the top 10? No way.

[MolsonExport]

Vancouver has a beautiful setting, thus a beautiful skyline. And is absent from this listicle.

does anybody think this:



is more beautiful than this?

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

does anybody think this:

is more beautiful than this?

No.

Obviously.



But let's at least use a pic of the full Milwaukee skyline.


Source: SSC's Brewers567, in this thread: https://www.skyscrapercity.com/threa...post-188123178


That's certainly not a global top 17 skyline.[/radical understatement]

But at least it's a top 5 great lakes skyline!!

"Better than Toledo" is still something.

[bilbao58]

Originally Posted by sentinel

Where is this?

It's Toronto seen from the northeast with some yet-to-be-built buildings included. You can just barely see the CN Tower under the far left cloud.

An unaltered version of the photo can be found here: https://urbantoronto.ca/forum/attach...dr-jpg.576779/

[badrunner]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

is more beautiful than this?

That's a very flattering picture. Here's what it looks like the morning after, when you sober up:

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by bilbao58

It's Toronto seen from the northeast with some yet-to-be-built buildings included. You can just barely see the CN Tower under the far left cloud.

An unaltered version of the photo can be found here: https://urbantoronto.ca/forum/attach...dr-jpg.576779/

For pure aesthetics, I actually prefer the unaltered one since there's more variation in height with actual peaks and valleys. The rendering just looks like a solid wall other than the part at Yorkville.

[bilbao58]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

For pure aesthetics, I actually prefer the unaltered one since there's more variation in height with actual peaks and valleys. The rendering just looks like a solid wall other than the part at Yorkville.

Me too.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

No.

Obviously.



But let's at least use a pic of the full Milwaukee skyline.

(...)

And as it happens to Chicago, Milwaukee skyline looks better by the river than by the lake.

[IluvATX]

Originally Posted by Maldive

(Future render)... how about ravines, enormous tree canopy and a Great Lake.


Maldive

This is the equivalent of me taking a screenshot of Simcity and deeming it best skyline ever.

[LivinAWestLife]

Why so much disagreement for Bangkok? It’s in the top 10 in size and impressive both in density and verticality. I like that there aren’t any large apartment complexes like in Seoul or China so it’s visually interesting. Watch a drone video on YouTube to see how massive it is.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by LivinAWestLife

Why so much disagreement for Bangkok? It’s in the top 10 in size and impressive both in density and verticality. I like that there aren’t any large apartment complexes like in Seoul or China so it’s visually interesting. Watch a drone video on YouTube to see how massive it is.

I don't think anyone is disagreeing about the size. The disagreement is mainly that some people consider size and beauty to be different characteristics while others seem to view them as interchangeable. Same with the term "interesting." For many of us, things can be interesting for various reasons; some good, some bad and some neutral. Being interesting doesn't necessarily increase something's beauty.

Personally if I'm just rating skylines more generally (which ones are the "best"), I consider both aesthetics (beauty), and impressiveness (height and quantity of buildings) and award points for each. But if I'm just looking at beauty, impressiveness doesn't really factor in. Well, other than that a skyline has to be big enough for me to care (since there's countless small skylines in the world) while height can play a role in a skyline's layering and proportions.

[LivinAWestLife]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

I don't think anyone is disagreeing about the size. The disagreement is mainly that some people consider size and beauty to be different characteristics while others seem to view them as interchangeable. Same with the term "interesting." For many of us, things can be interesting for various reasons; some good, some bad and some neutral. Being interesting doesn't necessarily increase something's beauty.

Personally if I'm just rating skylines more generally (which ones are the "best"), I consider both aesthetics (beauty), and impressiveness (height and quantity of buildings) and award points for each. But if I'm just looking at beauty, impressiveness doesn't really factor in. Well, other than that a skyline has to be big enough for me to care (since there's countless small skylines in the world) while height can play a role in a skyline's layering and proportions.

That's completely fair. It certainly lacks any cohesive or defined point of view with the tall buildings everywhere. I tends to find the density and variation beautiful in itself but there are many other factors too.

[Quixote]

Among the large skylines, Chicago probably is the most beautiful pound-for-pound thanks to the quality of its late-20th-century office buildings. 77 West Wacker, Leo Burnett, Franklin Center, and 190 South LaSalle in particular are my favorites, along with of course the city’s two most famous icons. This is where NYC really dropped the ball. Midtown Manhattan is littered with monstrosities.

Chicago feels like it sort of peaked in the late 2000s with Drump Tower, Aqua, and the proposed Spire, with everything built since not really pushing the envelope except for the St. Regis. NYC experienced a bit of a lull from the 90s through the mid 00s (9/11 obviously didn’t help). Bloomberg, TWC, 7 WTC, Hearst, NYT, and BofA were nice, but the real difference makers appeared post-recession.

[jdcamb]

Originally Posted by sentinel

Where is this?

Toronto.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Quixote

Chicago feels like it sort of peaked in the late 2000s with Drump Tower, Aqua, and the proposed Spire, with everything built since not really pushing the envelope except for the St. Regis.

The Spire never happened, so it seems odd to use it as an example of when the Chicago skyline "peaked".

Anyway, by the numbers, Chicago has 21 towers over 800' tall, including the U/C 400 N LSD. Here's how they break down by building boom.

Late '60s/early '70s: 5
Late '80s: 4
Early '00s: 1
Late '00s: 3
Current: 8


I would not peg the late '00s as the time period when Chicago's skyline "peaked", but that's just me.

[MolsonExport]

She ain't "impressive" but she sure is pretty (Quebec City):

[Cress3803]

Originally Posted by Quixote

Among the large skylines, Chicago probably is the most beautiful pound-for-pound thanks to the quality of its late-20th-century office buildings. 77 West Wacker, Leo Burnett, Franklin Center, and 190 South LaSalle in particular are my favorites, along with of course the city’s two most famous icons. This is where NYC really dropped the ball. Midtown Manhattan is littered with monstrosities.

Chicago feels like it sort of peaked in the late 2000s with Drump Tower, Aqua, and the proposed Spire, with everything built since not really pushing the envelope except for the St. Regis. NYC experienced a bit of a lull from the 90s through the mid 00s (9/11 obviously didn’t help). Bloomberg, TWC, 7 WTC, Hearst, NYT, and BofA were nice, but the real difference makers appeared post-recession.

Chicago adding nice density though

[DZH22]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

I would not peg the late '00s as the time period when Chicago's skyline "peaked", but that's just me.

I would say it's when it peaked relative to other major skylines, particularly NYC and Toronto in North America, many of the Asian cities, plus Dubai and maybe Moscow.

NYC makes Chicago look small and that wasn't really the case until very recently. I gave NYC an extended mulligan anyway until the skyline could at least recover from 9/11, but Chicago was probably still slightly ahead at the time One WTC was rebuilt. Now Midtown alone, with Hudson Yards, exceeds the entirety of Chicago. Plus, Toronto is getting closer in the rearview mirror with actual supertalls out of the ground.

Basically, however strong you feel the current boom is, it hasn't been as strong as the booms of most of Chicago's rival skylines on a global scale.

[MolsonExport]

On a recent trip to Chicago, I was blown away by the amount of recent construction, and of course, by the incredible legacy buildings from each era/architectural style that already made it a solid #2 (only after NYC) in the global skyscraper sweepstakes.

Dubai has the height, but lacks the quality and layers. Hong Kong has some beauties, and incredible density, but is too dominated by banal residential highrises. Shanghai and Chongqing are probably the best that China has to offer (along with aforementioned Hong Kong).

Toronto....wow, the pace of construction is incredible, but since it was far smaller back in the day, it's layers are not nearly as impressive. Toronto is a top-ten for sure, but does not belong in the same category as the continent's other two heavyweights, NYC and Chicago.

[bilbao58]

Originally Posted by DZH22

NYC makes Chicago look small and that wasn't really the case until very recently.

I disagree. The first thing I said to my friend upon entering Manhattan (the first time ever) by car from New Jersey in 1979 was something along the lines of "Holy cow! Chicago is definitely not like this!" Up until that time Chicago was the biggest city I'd been in.