Great Canadian Skyline Thread II

[Chadillaccc]

Originally Posted by mistercorporate

You misunderstood me, I meant Calgary makes Helsinki look small time in every way, as in it's a beefier looking city. I didn't mean that Calgary forumers said anything bad about Helsinki.

Oh my, I sincerely apologize for perceiving it that way. Thank you for kindly clarifying

Yeah it is true, however it is more of a North America-wide phenomenon that cities significantly outweigh their European counterparts in skyline and geographic territory. For instance, Stockholm is half a million people larger than Calgary, yet Halifax at ~430,000 people easily has a more impressive skyline than Stockholm. Canada's 4 largest skylines compare more to European Metros twice the size of Toronto's than to metros of our relative sizes, such as Paris (La Defense), London (COL and Canary Wharf), and Moscow.

[DrJoe]

It is great till you get to street level. Calgary specifically has suburbia hugging, or very close atleast, to its downtown. The eastern cities were lucky to develop pre-war and not suffer from this problem.

[Martin Mtl]

Fantastic pic ! I like how the smaller buildings create a delicate mid-density between the bigger ones, and Griffintown starting to make an appearance in the background. This angle will add many more major (and smaller) towers in the near future. Surface parking lots are finally disappearing ! It's been a 40 years struggle.

Originally Posted by G.S MTL

https://www.flickr.com/photos/mephisto3/

[Pavlov]

Originally Posted by Chadillaccc

Oh my, I sincerely apologize for perceiving it that way. Thank you for kindly clarifying

Yeah it is true, however it is more of a North America-wide phenomenon that cities significantly outweigh their European counterparts in skyline and geographic territory. For instance, Stockholm is half a million people larger than Calgary, yet Halifax at ~430,000 people easily has a more impressive skyline than Stockholm. Canada's 4 largest skylines compare more to European Metros twice the size of Toronto's than to metros of our relative sizes, such as Paris (La Defense), London (COL and Canary Wharf), and Moscow.

We aren't honestly comparing Stockholm and Halifax? I mean...

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Pavlov

We aren't honestly comparing Stockholm and Halifax? I mean...

Or even Helsinki and Calgary... at street level anyway.

[mistercorporate]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Or even Helsinki and Calgary... at street level anyway.

Most of Helsinki's housing stock is vinyl siding and crappy roads. The medieval downtown is tiny and even there it's pretty dead at street level.

Though I agree, Stockholm holds its own with any Canadian city...except maybe Toronto.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by mistercorporate

Most of Helsinki's housing stock is vinyl siding and crappy roads. The medieval downtown is tiny and even there it's pretty dead at street level.

Though I agree, Stockholm holds its own with any Canadian city...except maybe Toronto.

IMO Stockholm is more polished than any Canadian city. In terms of vibrancy it is roughly equivalent to Vancouver.

Helsinki IMO tops Ottawa, Calgary and Edmonton on the vast majority of urban metrics.

[logan5]

Oh man. Comparing your skyline to cities with almost no buildings taller than 6 stories looks laughably desperate. I dunno. I think I'd rather be in Helsinki than be in Calgary.

[kool maudit]

Originally Posted by Chadillaccc

Oh my, I sincerely apologize for perceiving it that way. Thank you for kindly clarifying

Yeah it is true, however it is more of a North America-wide phenomenon that cities significantly outweigh their European counterparts in skyline and geographic territory. For instance, Stockholm is half a million people larger than Calgary, yet Halifax at ~430,000 people easily has a more impressive skyline than Stockholm. Canada's 4 largest skylines compare more to European Metros twice the size of Toronto's than to metros of our relative sizes, such as Paris (La Defense), London (COL and Canary Wharf), and Moscow.

As a city, though, Stockholm is just leagues beyond those places. I think it can compare favourably with Montreal, let alone Calgary or Halifax.

[kool maudit]

On the skyscraper front, Europe's never going to have the same sort of thing going on, and Stockholm doesn't seem too enthusiastic about the form these days.

Too bad they didn't build this proposal back in 1927:



Gothenburg has a 245m tower going up though...

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Pavlov

We aren't honestly comparing Stockholm and Halifax? I mean...

Person A: "Halifax comes before Stockholm alphabetically."
Pavlov: "How dare you compare these two cities?"

The difference in size and importance actually makes the comparison more interesting. All else being equal, you'd expect Stockholm's highrises to be more impressive in terms of scale and design, and for them to come together to make a much better skyline. If they're not there's clearly something else going on.

(Also this is the skyline thread on skyscraperpage.com. It's not far-fetched for people to talk about skylines, highrises, or skyscrapers specifically without necessarily worrying about what's going on at street level.)

[kool maudit]

Why would you expect that, though? Stockholm's centre is a typical capital-city centre of palaces, public buildings, and 5-7 floor buildings from the 19th century. It has scattered highrises in the suburbs as well as urban renewal-type developments at a few points in the centre. At no point does its typology suggest that it would be realistic for large skyscrapers to come together into a "downtown skyline"-type arrangement.

If I could SimCity this with Halifax's 10 tallest, I wouldn't even know where to put them...

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by kool maudit

Why would you expect that, though? Stockholm's centre is a typical capital-city centre of palaces, public buildings, and 5-7 floor buildings from the 19th century. It has scattered highrises in the suburbs as well as urban renewal-type developments at a few points in the centre. At no point does its typology suggest that it would be realistic for large skyscrapers to come together into a "downtown skyline"-type arrangement.

If I could SimCity this with Halifax's 10 tallest, I wouldn't even know where to put them...

Put them in a mini "La Défense" style peripheral business district. I believe Oslo has one with buildings of similar scale to Halifax already.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by someone123

Person A: "Halifax comes before Stockholm alphabetically."
Pavlov: "How dare you compare these two cities?"

The difference in size and importance actually makes the comparison more interesting. All else being equal, you'd expect Stockholm's highrises to be more impressive in terms of scale and design, and for them to come together to make a much better skyline. If they're not there's clearly something else going on.

l.)

But isn't that a bit like assessing a city's urban heft based on the number of superhighways or McDonald's outlets?

[mistercorporate]

In terms of heft and street business:

Toronto = Berlin
Montreal = Stockholm
(Vancouver+Calgary)/2 = Helsinki
Hamilton = Chernobyl

Granted, Canadian cities don't have as much polish as say Stockholm, but we're still very much going through a growth spurt with all the acne and awkwardness that entails. Regardless, we do have our polished places, they're just not the uniform norm across our cities. Wait till things slow down after the next recession, and we'll reinvest in urban form, burying wires, and building more sculpted spaces. Yonge-Dundas Square was built during a rather dead time in real estate terms, yet it now feels like the hub of street life in the big smoke.

[giallo]

After spending a week in Paris, I'd give up every single highrise/skyscraper in Vancouver to have architecture and an urban fabric as impressive as that city. Paris is freaking incredible.

[mistercorporate]

Originally Posted by giallo

After spending a week in Paris, I'd give up every single highrise/skyscraper in Vancouver to have architecture and an urban fabric as impressive as that city. Paris is freaking incredible.

Paris is incredible because of its rich and well balanced culture, not its architecture, IMHO.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

Put them in a mini "La Défense" style peripheral business district. I believe Oslo has one with buildings of similar scale to Halifax already.

Yep, that would be possible. Clearly there are a bunch of factors that have caused the two places to have different urban forms, and consequently I guess Stockholm didn't evolve much of the sort of skyline that's much more common in North America.

(Maybe somebody will dispute the idea that Halifax has a nicer highrise skyline than Stockholm too. I really don't have a strong opinion on that. I'm just assuming it's true for the sake of discussion and because it seems plausible.)

Stockholm no doubt has more "urban heft", but that doesn't necessarily need to enter into a discussion on skylines. Cities have a bunch of separable characteristics such that sometimes smaller or less important ones will be more distinguished than bigger ones in some ways.

[giallo]

Originally Posted by mistercorporate

Paris is incredible because of its rich and well balanced culture, not its architecture, IMHO.

The culture is awesome, of course, but I absolutely agree to disagree on the architecture. I'd wager it's the best-looking city on the planet at street level. Nothing in Canada even comes slightly close. Not even a faction. A single square mile of Montmartre in central Paris is ten levels beyond anything Canada can offer architecturally and urbanity-wise.

[Hali87]

Well I mean, Wilmington, DE has a bigger highrise skyline than Stockholm. Stockholm seems to be a "Paris-type" city in that there wasalready such a dense stock of existing buildings by the modern era that there wasn't necessarily a demand for highrises in the inner city. Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe it also suffered little damage during the World Wars compared to most cities in Europe, so there wouldn't have been many sites in need of being rebuilt. Then again, Brussels for example was also largely undamaged by the wars but went the opposite route.