Canadian Skyline Thread III

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

The best sort of skyline IMO is one where you get the effect of shorter, skinnier residential towers sort of building up to a taller, beefier commercial core.

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

The best sort of skyline IMO is one where you get the effect of shorter, skinnier residential towers sort of building up to a taller, beefier commercial core.

[MolsonExport]

Lower Manhattan in the 1930s represented the pinnacle of great skyline massing. It will never be beaten (today the same view looks comparatively crappy).

[someone123]

Halifax from downtown Dartmouth


Source

[koops65]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

Lower Manhattan in the 1930s represented the pinnacle of great skyline massing. It will never be beaten (today the same view looks comparatively crappy).

This is just your personal opinion. My own is diametrically opposed to yours. Please don't type it as if it's carved in stone...

[craner]

Chicago is still what I hold up as a “great skyline” - just my personal favourite though, others have different opinions I know.

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by koops65

This is just your personal opinion. My own is diametrically opposed to yours. Please don't type it as if it's carved in stone...

Of course it is my opinion.

Come to think of it, this opinion could be carved in stone, unlike the endless glass curtains that present themselves today. As well as your diametrically opposed opinion (really, though? you think the lower manhattan skyline is better today?)

[Nouvellecosse]

Yeah Lower Manhattan in the 1930s is very cool and interesting but not my all time ideal either. For me there needs to be an element of modernity for me to call any skyline a favourite. Not the dystopian Blade Runner sense, but in a semi utopian, exciting, hopeful, progressive sense. While Lower Manhattan would have seemed very modern and futuristic to people in the 1930s, it gives me very retro vibes today.

My all time ultimate skyline would probably be something like Sydney in 2010. Small enough that you can take it all in fairly easily and can see most of the buildings without many being hidden behind one another but still big enough that it still gives metropolis vibes. Good variety of building designs and colours even if the styles were mostly POMO. Decent layering with some smaller building in the foreground from some angles but with the tallest buildings still showing most of their full height. It was very dense and perfectly balanced with a cool dome shape and tall enough to give a genuine sense of height compared to say, Vancouver. And also has the observation tower as a cool pinnacle which tends to work better from a skyline perspective than either a small stubby tower (Seattle, Calgary) or out of scale large one like Toronto. It's also dominated by office but with some residential mixed in. And all that with incredible natural framing and cool landmarks like the Opera house and habour bridge. The aesthetics have been thrown off a bit by some of the more recent developments but that era of roughly 2005-2015 was perfect to me.

But for any skyline to really be a favourite it has to give me that feeling when I'm approaching (or imagine myself approaching) of going from the ordinary mundane world into the hopeful and exciting future.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

My all time ultimate skyline would probably be something like Sydney in 2010. Small enough that you can take it all in fairly easily and can see most of the buildings without many being hidden behind one another but still big enough that it still gives metropolis vibes. Good variety of building designs and colours even if the styles were mostly POMO.

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[koops65]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

Of course it is my opinion.

Come to think of it, this opinion could be carved in stone, unlike the endless glass curtains that present themselves today. As well as your diametrically opposed opinion (really, though? you think the lower manhattan skyline is better today?)

Yes I most certainly do...

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by someone123

Source

Stunning

[Luisito]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

n (today the same view looks comparatively crappy).

Nonsense.

[Luisito]

NIce to see Dartmouth getting new buidlings. Halifax in general is is growing alot.Very nice pic.

Originally Posted by someone123

Halifax from downtown Dartmouth


Source

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Luisito

NIce to see Dartmouth getting new buidlings. Halifax in general is is growing alot.Very nice pic.

The new ones are mostly around the Macdonald bridge but there are a couple of ~30 storey buildings under construction near Queen Square (the not so beautiful office tower near the water on the right).

There's been some nice smaller infill as well and the canal daylighting project.

[zoomer]

Lower Manhattan in the 30's is near perfect - breathtaking especially considering how far it was ahead of everyone else with only Chicago a competitor.

I'm not a big fan of skyline Sydney in 2010, even today I wouldn't rank it in my top ten. Back then and to some degree now it's rather generic with an supersized Calgary KFC bucket with chains for a signature observation tower. Yes there is the undeniable bridge and opera house, but the opera house is again not a favourite building of mine.

I had to look back to see what Sydney looked like in 2010, here's a good visual summary:

https://www.skyscrapercity.com/threa...-2010.2234246/

click 'preview image for a collapsed post' for the pics.

As far as buildings from 2010 or prior, can't say I could name many at all:

https://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?cityID=172

New York, Chicago, Hong Kong, London in the top five for me, slot open for number 5 depending on the day.

[Nouvellecosse]

Yeah for me, head on from near the bridge was never its best angle (although I like it). That's sort of comparable to the central lake view of Toronto which is a bit limited. My favourite was always from further east or west rather than looking south from near the bridge.


https://wallpaperaccess.com/sydney-4k

But it really does help demonstrate how much of this stuff comes down to the meaning and associations people impose on what they're seeing rather than the pure aesthetics on their own.

[zoomer]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

But it really does help demonstrate how much of this stuff comes down to the meaning and associations people impose on what they're seeing rather than the pure aesthetics on their own.

I assume by “meanings and associations people impose” you mean people’s “perspective”. Pure aesthetics are also based on personal perspective and not a scientific calculation. Although they claim that human beauty is determined by measurable symmetry of the face. Even if a Sydney had/has the perfect skyline shape it lacks the layers of height, history, materials and significance that great skylines have. Of course, that’s just my personal ‘perspective’, lots of people love Sydney’s skyline.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by zoomer

I assume by “meanings and associations people impose” you mean people’s “perspective”. Pure aesthetics are also based on personal perspective and not a scientific calculation. Although they claim that human beauty is determined by measurable symmetry of the face. Even if a Sydney had/has the perfect skyline shape it lacks the layers of height, history, materials and significance that great skylines have. Of course, that’s just my personal ‘perspective’, lots of people love Sydney’s skyline.

Pure aesthetics tend to have a strong degree of inter-subjectivity meaning that there are strong prevailing trends across humans. There's a tendency for people to have common taste orientations as members of the same species. For instance, it's easy to look at how there are so many different opinions on say, flavours of ice cream, and think that the taste of food is mostly personal. But that's forgetting that most people can agree that ice cream tastes better than say, radish. Pure aesthetics tends to be more like that meaning that there are very strong trends that are scientifically measurable even it's there are outliers. But with skylines, it seems much more individualized than that.

[mcminsen]

For reference, here's a look at the Sydney, Australia skyline from a few minutes ago. Beautiful day down under.







Sydney Live Cam

source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uZa3-RMFos

[Nouvellecosse]

^ Not the best pictures since it seems a bit overexposed. But I supposed you can't expect much from a webcam. And the still isn't my favourite angle, particularly now that the new stuff on the right throws off the massing a bit.