UtakataNoAnnex
Senior Member
I was hoping they would iron out that annoying kink in the triangle floor plate one by now...
- Thread starter rdaner
- Start date
Riseth
Active Member
Awful, bland design that doesn't fit in with its surroundings. Proposing this on top of one of the nicest buildings in the city is just the cherry on top.
dodgeram
Active Member
Vertical fins. So hot right now.
DSC
Superstar
If only it WERE a cherry!
The Preservationist
Active Member
I had hoped this had a quiet death...
Transportfan
Senior Member
Funny the render uses NYC traffic lights.
Lenser
Senior Member
I would have preferred a new addition built flush over top of the existing building, using the whole roofline and sprouting 30-40 stories, clad in some lovely colored glass hue. the net effect would be still be impressively massive and you could throw a lot of residential units in such a building
I want to like this, I really do, but I keep seeing those two angular towers as weeds poking rudely above an otherwise lovely lawn. It just feels horribly inappropriate and awkward. No amount of attention to detail, like brilliant cladding and precise fit and finish, is going to keep this from looking like an epic misfire. The existing building is definitely imposing and the street experience desperately needs some TLC, I'll give you that. But these towers? Ugh.
I want to like this, I really do, but I keep seeing those two angular towers as weeds poking rudely above an otherwise lovely lawn. It just feels horribly inappropriate and awkward. No amount of attention to detail, like brilliant cladding and precise fit and finish, is going to keep this from looking like an epic misfire. The existing building is definitely imposing and the street experience desperately needs some TLC, I'll give you that. But these towers? Ugh.
This entire addition of density here depends upon the kinked tower, and it's going to look amazing if they get the materials right, with high quality mullion-free glass, and gleaming fins between them. The fully upright tower wouldn't be remarkable on its own, but as an ensemble with its slightly wonky counterpart, we'll have a bit of yin and yang in the pair, a balance of the ideal and the real.
Stripping a lot of the detail from the exteriors of both towers (other than the stressed verticals) means that without horizontal lines counting off the floors, passersby will have a harder time attaching a particular scale to the towers, which will help separate them from their entirely other base. It's the same architectural solution as IM Pei's juxtaposition of the glass pyramid at the classically detailed Louvre; do something utterly different, something cleanly geometric, more shape than building, in contrast.
There's the old "contrasting but complementary" saw, but I wouldn't invoke that in this case as I don't believe the new towers are meant to be complementary, other than to each other and to the surrounding skyline. They are not meant to be complementary to the Dominion Public Building base; contrast is the mission there, so as not to detract from the Dominion Public. Go for something complementary, and you start to dilute the original.
With some restoration, with some opening up to the sidewalk, with far more active spaces behind the stone walls than we have now, this project aims to make the Dominion Public Building far more connected to the sidewalk and the street and city life. Maybe that could be done with another reuse that didn't require the towers, but with the federal government having gone after the best offer they could get for the site, a business case has to be satisfied here. Ignoring that is dreaming... and the reality is something that could have gone many ways, from architects that did not understand the need to contrast here, from those who didn't understand the need to be subtractive in detail to allow a restored base to sing… so I'm pretty excited about what we're getting, which is couple of really cool towers, which a—A are good at, while we don't have to put up with a featureless a—A base, often the pedestrian realm scourge of the graceful skyline addition above. Thumbs up.
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Stripping a lot of the detail from the exteriors of both towers (other than the stressed verticals) means that without horizontal lines counting off the floors, passersby will have a harder time attaching a particular scale to the towers, which will help separate them from their entirely other base. It's the same architectural solution as IM Pei's juxtaposition of the glass pyramid at the classically detailed Louvre; do something utterly different, something cleanly geometric, more shape than building, in contrast.
There's the old "contrasting but complementary" saw, but I wouldn't invoke that in this case as I don't believe the new towers are meant to be complementary, other than to each other and to the surrounding skyline. They are not meant to be complementary to the Dominion Public Building base; contrast is the mission there, so as not to detract from the Dominion Public. Go for something complementary, and you start to dilute the original.
With some restoration, with some opening up to the sidewalk, with far more active spaces behind the stone walls than we have now, this project aims to make the Dominion Public Building far more connected to the sidewalk and the street and city life. Maybe that could be done with another reuse that didn't require the towers, but with the federal government having gone after the best offer they could get for the site, a business case has to be satisfied here. Ignoring that is dreaming... and the reality is something that could have gone many ways, from architects that did not understand the need to contrast here, from those who didn't understand the need to be subtractive in detail to allow a restored base to sing… so I'm pretty excited about what we're getting, which is couple of really cool towers, which a—A are good at, while we don't have to put up with a featureless a—A base, often the pedestrian realm scourge of the graceful skyline addition above. Thumbs up.
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