50 Best US Skylines

[jbermingham123]

Originally Posted by pdxtex

Seattle is top heavy, Denver is symmetrical. When you look at Seattle from Alki your eyes are drawn to the south by the Darth Vader building. Many demerits!

Ahhh ok yes I definitely agree with that

The problem will only get worse if seattle's only proposed supertall ever gets built (not looking likely)... its literally right across the street from columbia :|

[mhays]

Originally Posted by twinpeaks

I hope you are not trolling because I'm about to feed you.

You are really pushing DC without providing a skyline view on a horizon to back up your claim. Here's one of the best photos I could find showing the two tallest structures in DC.
...

NYC, Chicago, SF - your skyline can't compare to DC, #1 and #2 most famous in the world per mhays.

Most recognizable, without question. Outside of skyscraper fans and locals, most people can't tell skylines apart.

[pj3000]

All I know is that one hell of a lot more non-Americans can correctly identify an image of the Washington DC skyline than they can of an image of any other US skyline, other than NYC (and maybe St. Louis).

And this pretty much goes for most Americans as well.

We're total skyscraper nerds who can identify just about any city over 100k people just based on its skyline. But we are FAR from the norm.

Most people don't give a fuck about the stuff we obsess over on this page, and in the absence of some iconic, non-skyscraper structure on a city's skyline, can't tell Dallas from Detroit from Nashville from Atlanta from Denver from San Jose from Omaha from Miami from Philadelphia based on skyline only. Distinguishing one city's collection of corporate towers from another's is not something most people care about.


Try this out -- it's fun (for me at least)... show a non-SSPer skyline pics of say, New Orleans, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Houston, Washington DC, Kansas City, Detroit, Memphis, Sacramento, New York, Jacksonville, Calgary, Minneapolis, and Charlotte. Hell, might as well throw Denver in there too (with a view looking east). Ask them to identify the city.

What are they gonna get correct? NYC, DC, and St. Louis... likely every time. The rest? Let's just say they'll probably get a D or an F on the test.

[Crawford]

Eh, I think they'd get LA, SF, Chicago, Orlando, Vegas, Seattle and Miami about as much as they'd get DC. Hollywood sign, Golden Gate, Space Needle, Ocean Drive art deco, Chicago from Grant Park, the Strip, Disney.

And I don't think the Arch is all that globally well-known.

And, again, this is landmarks, not skyline. DC is recognized due to WH and Capitol.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by mhays

Most recognizable, without question. Outside of skyscraper fans and locals, most people can't tell skylines apart.

Not even New York or Chicago.

[badrunner]

Originally Posted by mhays

Most recognizable, without question. Outside of skyscraper fans and locals, most people can't tell skylines apart.

That may be true but I don't agree with recognizability being an all-important factor for evaluating skylines either. And that would be the only justification for ranking DC so high. It's a stretch to even call it a skyline.

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Eh, I think they'd get LA, SF, Chicago, Orlando, Vegas, Seattle and Miami about as much as they'd get DC. Hollywood sign, Golden Gate, Space Needle, Ocean Drive art deco, Chicago from Grant Park, the Strip, Disney.

And I don't think the Arch is all that globally well-known.

And, again, this is landmarks, not skyline. DC is recognized due to WH and Capitol.

The Vegas Strip, sure, that's likely another easily recognizable one, I think. I don't doubt that DC is recognized due to the Capitol and WH, but the Capitol and Wash Monument may be landmarks, but they are still the focal points of the DC skyline.

But anyway, your list is landmarks other than buildings... and that generally supports my point. Some landmarks are integral parts of a city's skyline... like the St. Louis arch (maybe it's not all that well known outside the US/Canada/Mexico, but it sure as hell is more of an identifier than Seattle's Space Needle).

But for the others... the Hollywood sign isn't necessarily a part of the LA skyline though. Sure, the sign is a dead giveaway, because it is literally a label Golden Gate bridge, it's a major idenitifer that a lot of people would recognize, but without it in the frame, most people aren't going to recognize say, the Transamerica building... much less identify it with SF. Space Needle... not sure about this one, but I'd bet max 20% of the US population could see a pic of it and identify the city as Seattle. Ocean Drive Art Deco of Miami Beach? Not part of the Miami skyline at all... just an idenitfiable image of the city. Also not too sure about Chicago... I'd bet a sursprisingly low percentage of Americans could correctly ID Chicago based on buildings alone, and certainly not non-Americans.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

I can't think of any major city that completely lacks highrises without height restrictions regardless of their density or land use patterns. Even Paris had to implement a ban after Tour Montparnasse was built even though it's one of the densest cities in the western world which it achieves almost entirely through low and midrise buildings. Can you name a single city in the developed world with a million+ metro area that has no highrises despite not having any current or recent high restrictions? There are big differences in the quantity and height for a variety of reasons but the only thing that prevents all highrises is to ban them.

To answer you question, no, not off the top of m head, but... Both European and American cities strictly control height. Some European cities would probably have taller buildings now because they are dense and have growth boundaries, but this does not disprove my point. European cities control height at the city level, American cities have height controls in zones across the city except for the city center. Without zoning restrictions a lot of American cities just aren't dense enough to support the organic construction of tall towers. We even have proof of that from the mid 20th century when companies left downtowns to build suburban office parks. Very few companies built towers in the greenfield suburbs, although 1) skyscrapers already existed, and 2) they probably could have if they wanted.

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

I think the part we're missing here is that the city center of a major city is a high demand area regardless of what surrounds it unless it's in severe decline. So there are always companies and institutions what want to locate there. But given that downtowns are usually the most built up part of the city it's more expensive to build the same amount of floor space possible in a skyscraper while using a lowrise form factor. It's possible to do it if they're forced to by height restrictions, but if not, they will build taller.

In modern American cities the "demand" is pushed into an arbitrary area of the cities by laws created 70 - 100 years ago. I mean, every city will differ to a degree but in general, American cities have strong differentiation in permitted uses of land and European cities don't. Cities like Barcelona, Paris, London, Rome, etc., don't have strong concepts of "central business districts" like American cities do.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

In modern American cities the "demand" is pushed into an arbitrary area of the cities by laws created 70 - 100 years ago.

Chicago's loop was created by way more than just "old laws".

Chicago was one of the pioneering cities of the entire skyscraper building type back in the late 19th century.

The limited amount of land in the city core bound by the lake/grant park to the east, the river to the north and west, and giant railyards to the south made it increasingly valuable, and hence as new technologies allowed the ever increasing stacking of floor upon floor, the skyscraper building type was birthed into existence literally as "a machine to make the land pay".

Throw in the loop L tracks and every single commuter rail terminal lining the perimeter of the loop, and it became a natural self-fulfilling prophecy of urban concentration that just kept feeding on itself. Companies built tall buildings in the loop because it made economic sense to do so, not because the city wouldn't let 'em do it out in Albany Park or Englewood or wherever.


If you haven't done so already, I cannot recommend reading Carol Willis' "Form follows Finance: Skyscrapers and Skylines in New York and Chicago" strongly enough. In fact, it should be required reading for everyone here at SSP.

[pdxtex]

Originally Posted by jbermingham123

Ahhh ok yes I definitely agree with that

The problem will only get worse if seattle's only proposed supertall ever gets built (not looking likely)... its literally right across the street from columbia :|

Seattle does look awesome, it just needs to stop skipping leg day, build a few tall ones in the middle. Portland got a little better after they finished the new Ritz. Now there isn't a giant gap between Big Pink and the rest of the CBD. Seattle's best view is coming up I-5 from the south. Then the Columbia Center looks massive and the highway right there. Big pimpin.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

To answer you question, no, not off the top of m head, but... Both European and American cities strictly control height. Some European cities would probably have taller buildings now because they are dense and have growth boundaries, but this does not disprove my point. European cities control height at the city level, American cities have height controls in zones across the city except for the city center. Without zoning restrictions a lot of American cities just aren't dense enough to support the organic construction of tall towers. We even have proof of that from the mid 20th century when companies left downtowns to build suburban office parks. Very few companies built towers in the greenfield suburbs, although 1) skyscrapers already existed, and 2) they probably could have if they wanted.

In modern American cities the "demand" is pushed into an arbitrary area of the cities by laws created 70 - 100 years ago. I mean, every city will differ to a degree but in general, American cities have strong differentiation in permitted uses of land and European cities don't. Cities like Barcelona, Paris, London, Rome, etc., don't have strong concepts of "central business districts" like American cities do.

So to summarize, if there's zoning restrictions that cause the city to be low density then there are towers built because the low density creates demand for them. And if there's restrictions like growth boundaries that cause a city to be high density, that creates demand for towers as well. So being both low density and high density (and I assume medium density?) all creates demand for towers as long as there's some sort of restrictions somewhere. So it's always the fault of some type of restrictions whether they increase or decrease density regardless of how many or few towers are built or how how/low the density actually is. And I'm sure for any city that has no legal restrictions it would just be natural restrictions like geography. And for cities without any natural or artificial restrictions, the towers would be the result of psychological restrictions or something. But regardless there's no natural demand for towers in cities.

Sounds like you've made up your mind about this theory and are simply going to invent some explanation for any evidence that doesn't fit whether or not it makes logical sense. Kind of like how some people do with religion. Like if my mother prayed for something and it happened, it proved the prayer was answered, and if it didn't happen it proved her faith wasn't strong enough or that it wasn't part of god's will which only god understood. With most of such topics, it isn't necessary to prove the theory false as there's not enough evidence to suggest that it's true to even bother worrying about it. But I know from experience that when people make up their mind about such things it's not possible to persuade them so I'll leave you be.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

Chicago's loop was created by way more than just "old laws".

Chicago was one of the pioneering cities of the entire skyscraper building type back in the late 19th century.

The limited amount of land in the city core bound by the lake/grant park to the east, the river to the north and west, and giant railyards to the south made it increasingly valuable, and hence as new technologies allowed the ever increasing stacking of floor upon floor, the skyscraper building type was birthed into existence literally as "a machine to make the land pay".

Throw in the loop L tracks and every single commuter rail terminal lining the perimeter of the loop, and it became a natural self-fulfilling prophecy of urban concentration that just kept feeding on itself. Companies built tall buildings in the loop because it made economic sense to do so, not because the city wouldn't let 'em do it out in Albany Park or Englewood or wherever.

I should've said postwar cities instead of "modern" cities. Prewar cities, including Chicago, have tall downtowns because of the historical origin of the city and mass transit systems focused on the downtown region. But Chicago does still push a lot of the height into a small geography, which was the direct result of downtown landowners in the early 20th century wanting to protect their property values, so they lobbied to restrict tall developments away from the loop.

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the downtown area was the business district of the American city, but beginning around the 1920s and 1930s, as cities continued to grow in size and population, rival business districts began to appear outside of downtown in outlying districts. This was the time when the term "central business district" began to appear as more-or-less synonymous with the downtown area. The phrase acknowledged the existence of other business districts in the city, but allocated to downtown the primacy of being "central", not only geographically, in many cities, but also in importance. And in many cases, the downtown area or central business district, itself began to grow, such as in Manhattan where the business district lower Manhattan and the newer one in midtown began to grow towards each other,[Notes 1] or in Chicago, where downtown expanded from the Loop across the Chicago River to Michigan Avenue. In fact, the instability of downtown was a cause for concern for business and real estate interests, as the business district refused to stay where it had been, and shifted its location in response to numerous factors, although it generally stayed fairly compact – in the early 1930s even the largest took up less than 2% of the city's space, and most were significantly smaller – and remained the primary business district of the city.[17]

Real estate interests were particularly concerned about the tendency of downtown to move because the downtown area had by far the highest land values in each city. One commentator said that if Chicago's land values were shown as height on a relief map, the Loop would be equivalent to the peaks of the Himalayas compared to the rest of the city. In 1926, Chicago's central business district, which took up less than 1% of the city, had 20% of the city's land value. The same relationship was true in St. Louis in the mid-20s (20%) and Los Angeles in the early 1930s (17%). So when a downtown area started to shift its location, some property owners were bound to lose a great deal of money, while others would stand to gain.[18]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downto...iness_district

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

If you haven't done so already, I cannot recommend reading Carol Willis' "Form follows Finance: Skyscrapers and Skylines in New York and Chicago" strongly enough. In fact, it should be required reading for everyone here at SSP.

I'll check it out.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

So to summarize, if there's zoning restrictions that cause the city to be low density then there are towers built because the low density creates demand for them. And if there's restrictions like growth boundaries that cause a city to be high density, that creates demand for towers as well. So being both low density and high density (and I assume medium density?) all creates demand for towers as long as there's some sort of restrictions somewhere. So it's always the fault of some type of restrictions whether they increase or decrease density regardless of how many or few towers are built or how how/low the density actually is.

Sounds like you've made up your mind about this theory and are simply going to invent some explanation for any evidence that doesn't fit whether or not it makes logical sense. Kind of like how some people do with religion. Like if my mother prayed for something and it happened, it proved the prayer was answered, and if it didn't happen it proved her faith wasn't strong enough or that it wasn't part of god's will which only god understood. With most of such topics, it isn't necessary to prove the theory false as there's not enough evidence to suggest that it's true to even bother worrying about it. But I know from experience that when people make up their mind about such things it's not possible to persuade them so I'll leave you be.

Oh, I wasn't looking to be persuaded lol. Just explaining my opinion/observation.

[Nouvellecosse]

^ Well "looking to be" and "open to being" are somewhat different things, but close enough.

[twinpeaks]

Originally Posted by mhays

Most recognizable, without question. Outside of skyscraper fans and locals, most people can't tell skylines apart.

This thread is not about the most famous landmarks, but what skyline of buildings people like. But if you like the obelisk in DC, more power to you. But it would not be on top of most people’s list or even consider it in terms of skyline in this forum.

The Washington monument is not even considered here as being famous.
https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/...the-world.html

[edale]

Originally Posted by twinpeaks

This thread is not about the most famous landmarks, but what skyline of buildings people like. But if you like the obelisk in DC, more power to you. But it would not be on top of most people’s list or even consider it in terms of skyline in this forum.

The Washington monument is not even considered here as being famous.
https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/...the-world.html

Yeah, idk why this DC conversation is even coming up. Landmarks/monuments do not equal skylines.

And honestly the capitol building and Washington Monument aren't even that unique. The Texas and Wisconsin capitol buildings are very similar to the one in DC, and the Washington Monument is a simple obelisk. Boston's Bunker Hill monument is essentially the same thing, just half as tall.

The National Mall, White House, etc. are definitely iconic buildings. I agree it's cool to fly over DC and see the low rise buildings with diagonal arterials. Lots of people here in the US and abroad are able to recognize DC due to its iconography. That doesn't change the fact that they don't have a skyline.

I feel like this is an extended, lame troll attempt.

[craigs]

I did an experiment and showed my husband the St. Louis skyline from the Mississippi River, with the Arch directly in the middle. He correctly identified the city immediately.

[SIGSEGV]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

The skyline fits in so well with the smoggy backdrop.

yeah unfortunately my camera was out of batteries so took this one with my phone...

[SIGSEGV]

Originally Posted by pj3000

The Vegas Strip, sure, that's likely another easily recognizable one, I think. I don't doubt that DC is recognized due to the Capitol and WH, but the Capitol and Wash Monument may be landmarks, but they are still the focal points of the DC skyline.

But anyway, your list is landmarks other than buildings... and that generally supports my point. Some landmarks are integral parts of a city's skyline... like the St. Louis arch (maybe it's not all that well known outside the US/Canada/Mexico, but it sure as hell is more of an identifier than Seattle's Space Needle).

But for the others... the Hollywood sign isn't necessarily a part of the LA skyline though. Sure, the sign is a dead giveaway, because it is literally a label Golden Gate bridge, it's a major idenitifer that a lot of people would recognize, but without it in the frame, most people aren't going to recognize say, the Transamerica building... much less identify it with SF. Space Needle... not sure about this one, but I'd bet max 20% of the US population could see a pic of it and identify the city as Seattle. Ocean Drive Art Deco of Miami Beach? Not part of the Miami skyline at all... just an idenitfiable image of the city. Also not too sure about Chicago... I'd bet a sursprisingly low percentage of Americans could correctly ID Chicago based on buildings alone, and certainly not non-Americans.

The Sears Tower is pretty well known (though some people can't tell it apart from the Hancock...) for being the tallest in the world for so long. Maybe that doesn't work on the kids though...

[JManc]

Originally Posted by craigs

I did an experiment and showed my husband the St. Louis skyline from the Mississippi River, with the Arch directly in the middle. He correctly identified the city immediately.

I just did the same with my wife, she immediately recognized it as STL.