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Dutch architects MVRDV designed these skyscrapers planned for South Korea. It’s called The Cloud, and is described as “a pixelated cloud” with towers rising through it.
Okay, now that you’ve seen the picture, what are you thinking? The architectural firm was caught off-guard by complaints from those who looked at the plan and saw the World Trade Center towers exploding. That’s the first thing I thought of, but MVRDV insists that the resemblance is coincidental. Read more about the controversy at Co.Design. Link -via The Daily What

Feast your eyes on some fantastic old architecture in New York City. The Trinity Building was built in 1904-1907. It is flanked by the U.S. Realty Building, constructed at the same time (making them the original “twin towers”) and the older Trinity Church, rebuilt in 1800. The Trinity Building has classic Art Deco detailing that gives it a timeless look. The three buildings have all been photographed extensively over the last 100 years, which you can see at Dark Roasted Blend. Link

Saudi Arabia’s proposed Kingdom Tower will rise to 5,280 feet. That’s a full mile. If completed, this building in Jeddah will cost $30 billion to build and will contain apartments, hotel rooms, and offices in its 12 million cubic feet of space. The above graphic compares the structure to the Petronis Tower (center) in Malaysia and the Empire State Building (left) in the US. Currently, the tallest building in the world is the Burj Khalifa, which is 2,700 feet tall.
Link via Gizmodo | Image: The Daily

Skyscrapers are a huge investment to build, are placed on pricey urban real estate, and contain lots of rental space, so you might be surprised that any are completely unused. Some are victims of poor planning; others are abandoned when the area suffers financial decline. Some of the older towers are unsafe due to age or toxic materials. The building shown here is Michigan Central Station in Detroit, built in 1913. See twelve such empty buildings at Web Urbanist. Link -via Rue the Day
I have always found skyscrapers to be so majestic, and beautiful. Here are some soon to be finished skyscrapers, as well as a few still in the design phase.
International Commerce Centre. West Kowloon, Hong Kong. Estimated Completion: 2010. Apparantly, this building was going to be even longer, but they were forced to scale it back, since city ordinances don’t allow buildings that are taller than the surrounding mountains.
From the Upcoming
ueue, submitted by notoriousnicholas.
No, New York is not underwater (yet, anyhow) – that’s a clever ad for HSBC by Ogilvy & Mather Mumbai ad agency in India. The bank wanted to raise awareness of the dangers of global warming, so the clever ad guys glued an aerial photo of a city’s skyscrapers to the base of a swimming pool … the effect of a submerged cityscape is fantastic!

