We’re living through the birth of a new species of skyscraper that not even architects and engineers saw coming. After 9/11, experts concluded that skyscrapers were finished. Tall buildings that were in the works got scaled down or canceled on the assumption that soaring towers were too risky to be built or occupied. “There were all sorts of public statements that we’re never going to build tall again,” one architect told The Guardian. “All we’ve done in the 20 years since is build even taller.” — The Atlantic
The ascendency of “accidental skylines” in Midtown Manhattan, Downtown Brooklyn, Miami, and recently Austin and Los Angeles is becoming a defining design trait of American cities as we move into the century’s third decade. “It’s a message of power,” developer Don Peebles told the Atlantic. “It’s not trying to blend in. It’s trying to stand out.”
The changes to New York City alone can be traced to new engineering techniques, rezoning, and the acceleration of real estate development begun under Michael Bloomberg’s administration, unprecedented wealth transfers that underwrite the high-end luxury residential market, and even the rise of architectural media, with lawsuits and public backlash representing the inevitable resistance against the envelope-pushing designs.
“In 2050, when these slender towers are eligible for landmark protection,” Skyscraper Museum director Carol Willis reminds us, writing in a 2015 Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) white paper on architecture's ability to communicate the societal values of its builders to future generations. “I have no doubt that some — such as 432 Park Avenue and 111 W 57 Street — will be designated as superior examples of the iconic forms characteristic of New York of the 2010s.”
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