Quote:
Originally Posted by Atlas
I like our skyline. I like that it has a smattering of good quality (albeit rather short) towers from various eras that, even though they are mostly boxy, really contrast each other in terms of color and texture. And it looks good in front of our incredible mountains.
I don't think a few more condo/apartment towers would look bad at all since we have so few at the moment. The residential towers that are proposed right now (Kensington, Theater, 370 S West Temple) seem to be really good-looking, if you ask me. We don't really have a signature tower yet, other than the COB perhaps, but that could change. Wasatch Wasteland mentioned that the prospective tower at 450 Main has "incredible geometry." Hopefully the building that breaks the 500 ft glass ceiling will be a distinctive one.
That said, too many distinctive, weird towers makes for an ugly skyline too. London's skyline comes to mind. Bleh. |
And see, I like London's skyline. It's unique and chaotic which I think works for the city. The only skylines that I am not a real fan of are the skylines that continue to be uniform, like Tehran:
Sadly, I think we're closer to that skyline than, say, Austin, Texas, who has seen an absolute explosion of growth tied to a significant amount of residential towers that are not all that distinctive:
But I love Austin's skyline. I think it absolutely looks 100x better than it did 15 years ago when, on the whole, it was very similar to Salt Lake's currently (stout, with a clear ceiling):
I know San Diego was brought up as another skyline with a table top feel to it, and it's true. But one big difference is that San Diego has 18 towers 400 feet or greater, whereas SLC only has two. I know it's relative but the lack of actual significant, consistent high rises does have an impact with the skyline because not only are you dealing with ground height differences, you're also seeing an abundance of towers within the 300-390 foot rage. So NONE of them begin to stand out.
San Diego, though, does have a 500 footer, and multiple towers close to it (five towers within 25 feet of 500 feet). They also have a significant amount of towers that are 300-399 feet on top of the 18 towers I mentioned that are 400+ feet. So, even though there is a cap, which has created that table top feel, there remains a strong level of height diversity among the towers in San Diego.
We're not there yet. We're not close to being there yet.
San Diego may not have a lot of high rises that stand out, but the skyline compliments every high rise well enough that it's unique in its own right:
I say this because there's diversity among the towers, even if there's no diversity among the heights. But the fact is, a lot of these buildings stand on their own:
I think that helps.
Now, of course, there's angels that are not as strong as the bay placement - but on the whole, it comes together nicely.
So, in reality, there are two options for Salt Lake:
1. We get a signature tower in the next few years that radically changes the skyline - even if it looks a tad off because the tower stands out. I am thinking Seattle when they built Columbia Center:
Minneapolis in the 1970s:
And OKC today:
...maybe not anything that extreme but a tower that is pushing 600 feet, so, something similar to, as I mentioned earlier, Austin, where they absolutely saw a jump in height once they broke the 500 foot barrier. Prior to the completion of the Frost Bank Tower (516 feet) in 2004, their tallest was 401 feet. Like I said, their skyline was on par with Salt Lake's. Then that Frost Bank Tower upped things a bit. They hit 516 feet and, within four years, they topped out another new tallest at 581 feet, while doing it again two years later at 683 feet and nine years later, and now just last year, their tallest is 690 feet.
Or we wait for a few decades before the skyline fills in enough that it can realistically stand along side San Diego.
Frankly, I'd rather have a lopsided skyline initially, with a standout tower, and see the skyline develop around that tower, maybe pushing things up, as opposed to settling with 300-399 foot towers that, while not bad in the least, are far from revolutionary.
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