that denver art museum (rendering above) is under construction and looks like ass, the cladding is not nearly as sleek as in that rendering. the cladding isn't uniform color - it has unsightly "patches" on it.
My god... it is Arquitectonica on the Ohio. This isn't going to sit well with the neighborhood association, which the last time I was there would have been comprised of a floating Hooters and the S.S. Spooky, a vacant nightclub/barge temporarily converted into a ghost ship for Halloween.
i agree with whoever compared him to gehry. my problem is that his "stlye" (language, design, bullshit, whatever you want to call it) has become cliche and he's the only one doing it.
i do think that his original for the wtc is better than childs' @som
Someone also explain to me how the real estate market in KY warrants a condo tower- WonderK, did you guys run out of room or something?- You could still annex West Va.
pomotrash, the real estate market doesn't really warrant it. I think that as enthusiastic as they are about the whole idea of it, it's about a 50/50 chance that it will get built. Every unit would be so expensive, and there would be a lot of units. There definitely IS a market for real estate close to the river and with City views, just probably not that much of it.
Unless they tear down the piece of crap next to the Marriott. Then Ken Griffey Jr. would need a new pad! OH but I can dream....
it's all part of the downward slide for the great KY....
first a republican governor, then Azubuike goes pro, now THIS.
i mean i leave you guys alone for just a few years.............
Fortunately they have a web cam so I won't have to keep posting construction photos. However, I will let you know when my coworkers and I decide to go and scrawl messages in chalk on the concrete.
So the other day I watched them drive 3 massive blue i beams directly into the soil. At first I wasn't quite sure what they could be for. They were set in no foundation and were too near the road/sidewalk to be part of the building itself.
I had this suspicion it might be for a big f*all sign of a bad computer rendering, and this morning I realized suspicion confirmed.
Personally I'd rather watch a building slowly take shape than look at perforated vinyl for two years, but that's just me.
Last night I saw a link (maybe in the photographers section?) about our preference to just cover up a building site and pretend it doesn't exist until it is finished. This sign is placed purposefully enough to obstruct much of the site while coming off the bridge.
I think you can see it from the site's webcam.
HAHA, okay, so I just went on the website again and now there's a video under the 'living at the ascent' link. If you feel like a laugh at something cheesetastic, check it out. It left me with a feeling of 'go whitey!'
wow. that video was really gross. almost offen-....no, it was offensive. that marketing firm should be fired.
the 'fluid and dynamic' lifestyle, etc.> borders on satire. the only hope i have is that the copywriters were laughing their heads off when they wrote it.
i just saw a car accident on the live webcam. and i think somebody doing something strange on the sixth floor of the building on the right. i don't like whats going on there, somebody might be shredding some paper work..
oooops. just now somebody crossed the street and peed near the dark construction site. it is hard too see much. great movie..
Oh my god, it really is for a sign. Ugh. That's awful.
abra, crazy shite goes on around that bridge all the time. I think there's a story about a crack whore who did a strip tease right there on the sidewalk once....
was the voiceover on that video done by captain kirk? was the guy in the video captain kirk? it was nauseating yet sickening. gaggifying yet eyepoking, hemmoroidal yet pussfilled, avian flulike yet anthraxfilled.
Yeah apparently the situation is under control at this point. From what I hear, the only person that got hurt was the guy who was driving the gas truck, because he tried to put the fire out after it started. So hopefully not too bad. My office just moved out of the big pink trashcan this past weekend so instead of a front row view - my boss's office faced the site - all we could see was smoke from 7 blocks away! Crazy stuff. but yes, we are all OK.
In any case, I don't think anything structural was majorly damaged but you have to think the heat did something.
Oh my god! I'm so glad that no one got seriously hurt because I can laugh at stuff like this:
'Duermit, of Loveland, said there were about 50 construction workers at the site at the time of the explosion. He said he believes all of them escaped without injury but there was some concern about a portable toilet at the site.
"Right now, we're hoping no one was in that Port-o-Let," he said.'
Libeskind seems to love acute angles piercing the sky and the trick of many sculptors where the form seems to be floating or likely to topple over due to its asymetrical configuration. He knows how to grab your eye, your attention, and your imagination......pro or con. I rather like his concepts for Milan* and for the Science building in Hong Kong. (The previously posted reference to shard forms seems appropriate.)
*He has some room to create his own context for his buildings here.
Given that italy and Milan are widely known for their contributions to the
realms of art and design and that the city could have chosen almost
any of the world's great architects to do this project, it is quite a credit
that Liebeskind's vision is their choice for themselves and at a cost
they are willing to bear.
A sculpture doesn't necessarily have to have a physical context surrounding it in order to make its statement... buildings always do and therefore alter the character of everything around them through the elements
of contrast or compliment in the newly established relationships.
The Ascent is inspired by and is said to compliment the nearby Robeling Bridge, a familiar (beloved) icon for Cin city and Covington. When i visited there i noticed a lot of terra-cotta brick and the two dark copperish buildings that will be adjacent to the completed Ascent. This new building is bit like dropping a glorious, geometrically refined iceberg in the midst of all that. All that surrounds it seems to pale by comparison. Even little things....in one of the promo shots on the Ascent website a simple yellow street sign seems to become very vulgar and out of place in relation to the nearby trees and the image of the building in the background. (You can suggest that this is merely a matter of poor photo composition or maybe you have no love for street sign designs already, but see if your design sense tells you that it may also be more than that. Look at the elegance of the entry door handles in one of the other photos.)
i hope for all involved that the Ascent is a great success. It is a remarkable structure and a significant break from architectural tradition for
that area. Still....there is the nagging feeling that there may be a parallel to
the lady of modest means that is given a superb new mink coat and suddenly
discovers that her wardrobe and her current lifestyle have been outclassed,
which will subsequently require some drastic change and escalating expense. Sometimes dreams and aspirations can outdistance the capacity to accommodate them.
Conversely, the soaring vision of the WTC may never have been practical to build, but was invaluable as a kind of poetic, sculptural/architectural response to the tragedy that occurred there. I was saddened to see it so stripped of its glory by all the contending forces that have to be delt with in bringing such a stunning vision into this world. (i guess every city would like
to have its own version of a Sydney Opera House or maybe a Ghery version.....why not, if they can afford it?)
"This new building is bit like dropping a glorious, geometrically refined iceberg in the midst of all that. All that surrounds it seems to pale by comparison"
obviously, you have never seen all the steel-and-glass 'icebergs' that dot metropolitian cities all over the world. And they are all 'geometrically refined' too.
"It is a remarkable structure and a significant break from architectural tradition" in what ways exactly is this building a significat break ?
Icebergs tend to have their sharp edges rounded and weathered while still keeping one or more high peaks and broadening at the base. This building
is refined in the sense that it has a familiar crescent shape which is less organic and a cylindrical verticality rather then the conic or pyramidal shape of most icebergs. i have been to NY and Boston many times and seen plenty of glass skinned sky scrapers. They do/did not project quite the same kind of presence in their environment that this building does in Covington. I chose to liken it to an iceberg because that was my impression of it. How would you articulate/characterize yours?
I qualified the "break" viewpoint. It is a departure from the high rise styles and materials for THAT AREA as you can see in the pictures that mostly rectangular structures surround it. Referring to color and surface detail there is an extensive use of brick in various areas of Cincinatti for lower rise structures and as pavers. I am less familiar with Covington, but brick is and was a popular and practical bulding material for the area. It gives a very different sort of look and feel which is a lot closer to the copper colored buildings than is the appearance of the Ascent.
For those of you who are following this thread and do not care for this
structure and its style (as you have made amply clear by your comments) how about suggesting an alternative either from your own designs or those of another architect whom you admire? You don't have to be bound by the bridge reference, but the structure should make sense for the site and....yes, it can be more 'green' than this one will be. You can suggest a signature
building and architect also, but please keep in mind this is Covington not Chicago or NYC or a Trump project so it ought to make sense in terms of the market envelope there.
seems to me and i dont know much that if one is going to use geologicalgeographical/meteorological(whaerever an iceberg is categorized) references to their buildings then perhaps they should reference geological/meterological/geographic of where they are working ala tony predock. far as i know cinci aint got any icebergs although maybe they did at one time.
Arch-digested is making some interesting points, which is appreciated. I think my problem is with the context of the area. Those pink trashcans never should have been built to begin with.
That Michael Graves' building is atrocious. But hey, that seems to be his style. He gives us all hope. No matter how terrible we may design, if Michael Graves can get shit built, so can we.
It's not as bad as the one in Portland. I was so disgusted by that building when I went to Portland that I literally turned around and walked away, it wasn't even worth wasting energy on getting closer....it's like a bad dream I had in the 80's.
OK, I know the Portland Building is ridiculous, but! my own opinion (uninformed by any serious knowledge of Portland real estate/architectural history beyond living ther for a few years) is this: The Portland skyline had been fairly monochromatic until 1980. After the Portland Building, architects working in the city seemed to feel freedom to use some color (bricks, pinks, blues, greens) in their buildings, which was IMO a welcome addition in a city whose weather typically looks like this:
Portland now has a really lovely skyline.
Perhaps the Ascent will inspire other *local* projects to be bold, though the results could either be good or disastrous, of course.
WonderK, isn't this building going into the neighborhood I was so concerned was too-too-too rose pink already?
Well, I haven't brought it up lately but this is actually being built fairly quickly. All of the structure is up and probably about 1/2 of the curtain wall is up as well. Also the concrete slabs for all of the balconies are sticking out like little tabs on facade of the building. I'll post some pictures later.
I'm mentioning it now because Libeskind was in town this morning for a "cloud-breaking ceremony" , where he apparently autographed the last beam before they hoisted it into place. They then set off fireworks, which scared the living sh*t out of me and my whole office.....we're used to fireworks because of baseball games, but not at 10 o'clock in the morning.
Traditionally the last beam has a little tree on it, and is lifted into place in celebration of the collective effort and ability of the team that got the building structure up.
Having the architect "autograph" the last beam totally subverts this centruies old tradition and frankly makes me kinda sick to my stomach. Good lord.
<<<rant over>>>
Looking forward to seeing the pics, DubK. Fireworks at 10am? Were they very visible?
I've heard about a "topping out party" but I've never heard the tree thing. It's funny because a just drove by a construction site yesterday and remarked about how fast the steel frame went up and then I noticed a little tree out at the corner of one of the beams. I figured that it had something to do with topping out, but wasn't sure.
Libeskind's vision for the heartland
that denver art museum (rendering above) is under construction and looks like ass, the cladding is not nearly as sleek as in that rendering. the cladding isn't uniform color - it has unsightly "patches" on it.
My god... it is Arquitectonica on the Ohio. This isn't going to sit well with the neighborhood association, which the last time I was there would have been comprised of a floating Hooters and the S.S. Spooky, a vacant nightclub/barge temporarily converted into a ghost ship for Halloween.
Ah Covington. How's that Monorail doing?
i think jungle jim still has his fingers crossed on it.
i agree with whoever compared him to gehry. my problem is that his "stlye" (language, design, bullshit, whatever you want to call it) has become cliche and he's the only one doing it.
i do think that his original for the wtc is better than childs' @som
Someone explain to my why a red-state city gets a mega-tower by the Libester and out here in LA we only get one by Thom Manye?
I like the idea of the pool better.
Someone also explain to me how the real estate market in KY warrants a condo tower- WonderK, did you guys run out of room or something?- You could still annex West Va.
Covington shoul dbring back Wildflour Tapas resturant...that place was great
I always strongly disliked Libeskind, confusing his designs with himself.
And then I read "Breaking Ground", and somehow his pure optimism got ahold of me...
And now I find that, once again, I confuse my opinion on his person with his designs. I WANT to like them, but.... damn, I just can't.
pomotrash, the real estate market doesn't really warrant it. I think that as enthusiastic as they are about the whole idea of it, it's about a 50/50 chance that it will get built. Every unit would be so expensive, and there would be a lot of units. There definitely IS a market for real estate close to the river and with City views, just probably not that much of it.
Unless they tear down the piece of crap next to the Marriott. Then Ken Griffey Jr. would need a new pad! OH but I can dream....
it's all part of the downward slide for the great KY....
first a republican governor, then Azubuike goes pro, now THIS.
i mean i leave you guys alone for just a few years.............
Ha ha, it's starting:
http://www.yourascent.com/
Fortunately they have a web cam so I won't have to keep posting construction photos. However, I will let you know when my coworkers and I decide to go and scrawl messages in chalk on the concrete.
No harm no foul.
So the other day I watched them drive 3 massive blue i beams directly into the soil. At first I wasn't quite sure what they could be for. They were set in no foundation and were too near the road/sidewalk to be part of the building itself.
I had this suspicion it might be for a big f*all sign of a bad computer rendering, and this morning I realized suspicion confirmed.
Personally I'd rather watch a building slowly take shape than look at perforated vinyl for two years, but that's just me.
Last night I saw a link (maybe in the photographers section?) about our preference to just cover up a building site and pretend it doesn't exist until it is finished. This sign is placed purposefully enough to obstruct much of the site while coming off the bridge.
I think you can see it from the site's webcam.
HAHA, okay, so I just went on the website again and now there's a video under the 'living at the ascent' link. If you feel like a laugh at something cheesetastic, check it out. It left me with a feeling of 'go whitey!'
wow. that video was really gross. almost offen-....no, it was offensive. that marketing firm should be fired.
the 'fluid and dynamic' lifestyle, etc.> borders on satire. the only hope i have is that the copywriters were laughing their heads off when they wrote it.
i just saw a car accident on the live webcam. and i think somebody doing something strange on the sixth floor of the building on the right. i don't like whats going on there, somebody might be shredding some paper work..
oooops. just now somebody crossed the street and peed near the dark construction site. it is hard too see much. great movie..
Oh my god, it really is for a sign. Ugh. That's awful.
abra, crazy shite goes on around that bridge all the time. I think there's a story about a crack whore who did a strip tease right there on the sidewalk once....
I could only stand about 45 seconds of the video.
was the voiceover on that video done by captain kirk? was the guy in the video captain kirk? it was nauseating yet sickening. gaggifying yet eyepoking, hemmoroidal yet pussfilled, avian flulike yet anthraxfilled.
great reporting by w kay. top news. live web cam shows the site but its spic and span. where is the black smoke and other distruction?
WonderK is everyone alright, by which I mean the Archinect Cincy crew, of course, though I also worry about construction workers?
Yeah apparently the situation is under control at this point. From what I hear, the only person that got hurt was the guy who was driving the gas truck, because he tried to put the fire out after it started. So hopefully not too bad. My office just moved out of the big pink trashcan this past weekend so instead of a front row view - my boss's office faced the site - all we could see was smoke from 7 blocks away! Crazy stuff. but yes, we are all OK.
In any case, I don't think anything structural was majorly damaged but you have to think the heat did something.
shit, i'm here in new york, and there's an explosion in covington?
anyone got a link?
From the Enquirer: "I got the hell out of there"
Oh my god! I'm so glad that no one got seriously hurt because I can laugh at stuff like this:
'Duermit, of Loveland, said there were about 50 construction workers at the site at the time of the explosion. He said he believes all of them escaped without injury but there was some concern about a portable toilet at the site.
"Right now, we're hoping no one was in that Port-o-Let," he said.'
had i gone into construction work, I would probably have been that guy in the port-o-let...
thank you DAAP architecture school, for saving my life
pointy bird,
oh pointy, pointy
anoint my head,
anointy, nointy
your ascent, your lifestyle, your architect (libeskind), your town.... what kitschy krap.
Riddle me this.....
Libeskind seems to love acute angles piercing the sky and the trick of many sculptors where the form seems to be floating or likely to topple over due to its asymetrical configuration. He knows how to grab your eye, your attention, and your imagination......pro or con. I rather like his concepts for Milan* and for the Science building in Hong Kong. (The previously posted reference to shard forms seems appropriate.)
*He has some room to create his own context for his buildings here.
Given that italy and Milan are widely known for their contributions to the
realms of art and design and that the city could have chosen almost
any of the world's great architects to do this project, it is quite a credit
that Liebeskind's vision is their choice for themselves and at a cost
they are willing to bear.
A sculpture doesn't necessarily have to have a physical context surrounding it in order to make its statement... buildings always do and therefore alter the character of everything around them through the elements
of contrast or compliment in the newly established relationships.
The Ascent is inspired by and is said to compliment the nearby Robeling Bridge, a familiar (beloved) icon for Cin city and Covington. When i visited there i noticed a lot of terra-cotta brick and the two dark copperish buildings that will be adjacent to the completed Ascent. This new building is bit like dropping a glorious, geometrically refined iceberg in the midst of all that. All that surrounds it seems to pale by comparison. Even little things....in one of the promo shots on the Ascent website a simple yellow street sign seems to become very vulgar and out of place in relation to the nearby trees and the image of the building in the background. (You can suggest that this is merely a matter of poor photo composition or maybe you have no love for street sign designs already, but see if your design sense tells you that it may also be more than that. Look at the elegance of the entry door handles in one of the other photos.)
i hope for all involved that the Ascent is a great success. It is a remarkable structure and a significant break from architectural tradition for
that area. Still....there is the nagging feeling that there may be a parallel to
the lady of modest means that is given a superb new mink coat and suddenly
discovers that her wardrobe and her current lifestyle have been outclassed,
which will subsequently require some drastic change and escalating expense. Sometimes dreams and aspirations can outdistance the capacity to accommodate them.
Conversely, the soaring vision of the WTC may never have been practical to build, but was invaluable as a kind of poetic, sculptural/architectural response to the tragedy that occurred there. I was saddened to see it so stripped of its glory by all the contending forces that have to be delt with in bringing such a stunning vision into this world. (i guess every city would like
to have its own version of a Sydney Opera House or maybe a Ghery version.....why not, if they can afford it?)
"This new building is bit like dropping a glorious, geometrically refined iceberg in the midst of all that. All that surrounds it seems to pale by comparison"
obviously, you have never seen all the steel-and-glass 'icebergs' that dot metropolitian cities all over the world. And they are all 'geometrically refined' too.
"It is a remarkable structure and a significant break from architectural tradition" in what ways exactly is this building a significat break ?
Icebergs tend to have their sharp edges rounded and weathered while still keeping one or more high peaks and broadening at the base. This building
is refined in the sense that it has a familiar crescent shape which is less organic and a cylindrical verticality rather then the conic or pyramidal shape of most icebergs. i have been to NY and Boston many times and seen plenty of glass skinned sky scrapers. They do/did not project quite the same kind of presence in their environment that this building does in Covington. I chose to liken it to an iceberg because that was my impression of it. How would you articulate/characterize yours?
I qualified the "break" viewpoint. It is a departure from the high rise styles and materials for THAT AREA as you can see in the pictures that mostly rectangular structures surround it. Referring to color and surface detail there is an extensive use of brick in various areas of Cincinatti for lower rise structures and as pavers. I am less familiar with Covington, but brick is and was a popular and practical bulding material for the area. It gives a very different sort of look and feel which is a lot closer to the copper colored buildings than is the appearance of the Ascent.
For those of you who are following this thread and do not care for this
structure and its style (as you have made amply clear by your comments) how about suggesting an alternative either from your own designs or those of another architect whom you admire? You don't have to be bound by the bridge reference, but the structure should make sense for the site and....yes, it can be more 'green' than this one will be. You can suggest a signature
building and architect also, but please keep in mind this is Covington not Chicago or NYC or a Trump project so it ought to make sense in terms of the market envelope there.
seems to me and i dont know much that if one is going to use geologicalgeographical/meteorological(whaerever an iceberg is categorized) references to their buildings then perhaps they should reference geological/meterological/geographic of where they are working ala tony predock. far as i know cinci aint got any icebergs although maybe they did at one time.
Arch-digested is making some interesting points, which is appreciated. I think my problem is with the context of the area. Those pink trashcans never should have been built to begin with.
I've got stuff to do or else I would elaborate.
A view of Graves's library through a window in the new wing of the Denver Art Museum, looking over 13th Ave. (taken last May)
VADO
THE CINCINNATI / OHIO RIVER VALLEY WAS FORMED FROM GLACIAL ACTIVITY BACK IN THE DAY
is a glacier an iceberg?
maybe it has to do with some higher per capita use of iceberg lettuce in the midwest? (relative to other greens only, of course.)
THEY ARE BOTH COLD..LIKE Libeskind's BUILDINGS
That Michael Graves' building is atrocious. But hey, that seems to be his style. He gives us all hope. No matter how terrible we may design, if Michael Graves can get shit built, so can we.
It's not as bad as the one in Portland. I was so disgusted by that building when I went to Portland that I literally turned around and walked away, it wasn't even worth wasting energy on getting closer....it's like a bad dream I had in the 80's.
OK, I know the Portland Building is ridiculous, but! my own opinion (uninformed by any serious knowledge of Portland real estate/architectural history beyond living ther for a few years) is this: The Portland skyline had been fairly monochromatic until 1980. After the Portland Building, architects working in the city seemed to feel freedom to use some color (bricks, pinks, blues, greens) in their buildings, which was IMO a welcome addition in a city whose weather typically looks like this:
Portland now has a really lovely skyline.
Perhaps the Ascent will inspire other *local* projects to be bold, though the results could either be good or disastrous, of course.
WonderK, isn't this building going into the neighborhood I was so concerned was too-too-too rose pink already?
That makes sense about the Portland building. Hey, I'm all about color. Just not like that.
Yes, lb, the Ascent is going up in the pink neighborhood, and will be about 30 yards away from your Diner. It will stand out, to say the least.
im going to target today. maybe i'll buy something designed by michael graves.
who loves these "renderings"?
they are renderings of you being happy living in the ascent
THE ASCENT
Well, I haven't brought it up lately but this is actually being built fairly quickly. All of the structure is up and probably about 1/2 of the curtain wall is up as well. Also the concrete slabs for all of the balconies are sticking out like little tabs on facade of the building. I'll post some pictures later.
I'm mentioning it now because Libeskind was in town this morning for a "cloud-breaking ceremony" , where he apparently autographed the last beam before they hoisted it into place. They then set off fireworks, which scared the living sh*t out of me and my whole office.....we're used to fireworks because of baseball games, but not at 10 o'clock in the morning.
Ah, well.
Thanks for the update.
But jeeeezus keerist here i go on a little rant:
Traditionally the last beam has a little tree on it, and is lifted into place in celebration of the collective effort and ability of the team that got the building structure up.
Having the architect "autograph" the last beam totally subverts this centruies old tradition and frankly makes me kinda sick to my stomach. Good lord.
<<<rant over>>>
Looking forward to seeing the pics, DubK. Fireworks at 10am? Were they very visible?
Oh we didn't see them but we heard them. I've lived in the "ghetto" for almost 3 years now and I've never heard bangs like that before.
I like the tree thing. I actually didn't know about that.
The CAC and skyline chili are reason enough to make me love Cincinnati.
I've heard about a "topping out party" but I've never heard the tree thing. It's funny because a just drove by a construction site yesterday and remarked about how fast the steel frame went up and then I noticed a little tree out at the corner of one of the beams. I figured that it had something to do with topping out, but wasn't sure.
is a brief history.
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