Seagram Building

This is the Seagram Building. It was designed by the famous architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in collaboration with Philip Johnson. It is the true Modernistic skyscraper. It is a simple, non-decorative skyscraper. Some people would call it a minimalist skyscraper. 

It is 516 ft. with 38 stories. It was completed in 1958. When Ludwig designed the building he wanted to show the structure on the outside of the building. In the original plan he wanted the steel frame forming a major part of the facade. But code dictated that the steel be covered by a fire resistant material. So he covered it with concrete, and then covered the concreted with non-load bearing bronze colored I-beams. 

When built, this skyscraper was at the time the most expensive skyscraper to build mostly because of the exquisite interior. He made the facade seem more regular by designing window shades that could only be drawn to three positions: up, down, and in the middle. This made the building stand apart from other skyscrapers whose shades are at all different positions and makes the windows seem irregular.

While the skyscraper is tall, it is not as imposing as other towers of the day. That is because the tower is set back from the sidewalk, forming a public plaza that integrates the sidewalk that is quite popular to this day. 

The is the epitome of Internationalist skyscrapers.

Torre Agbar

This is Torre Agbar, located in Barcelona, Spain, in which it is the third tallest building at 474 ft. tall. It was designed by Jean Nouvel. When completed in 2004, it was classified as an example of "high-tech architecture". Torre Agbar is occupied as an office building. The facade of the building is made up of windows with with different tints, and sheets of aluminum which is also different colors:

As can be seen in the picture below, there are sun shades which are automatically opened and closed, depending on the orientation of the sun. (The man in the picture is Alain Robert, a famous urban climber.)

Jean Nouvel says the building is inspired by a mountain near Barcelona called Montserrat, and also by the the shape of a geyser. In the daytime, it is has a look quite similar in shape to the Swiss Re Tower:
http://chris-skyline.blogspot.com/search/label/Swiss%20Re%20Building

But it is remembered by most people for it's night display. Incorporated in the the facade are 4,500 LED lights which create a gorgeous display. The LED's can operate independently, and switch colors in the blink of the eye, thus creating innumerable possible patterns. Over 15,000,000 colors can be created!

This is certainly a unique building, and one I have wanted to post on for a while.

Renaissance Center

This is the Renaissance Center. It is GM's headquarters. It consists of seven different towers built at different times.The first building were constructed in 1972.

It has a total of 5,552,000 square ft. of office space! I don't have time to post much more. Sorry, but we have busy week.

Willis Tower

This is the Willis Tower, previously known as the Sears Tower.

It is located in Chicago, Illinois, and is one of the most famous skyscrapers in the world, being the tallest building in America. It has 108 stories, and is a total of 1,451 ft. tall at the height of it's roof. With the antennas included in the height, it reaches a total of 1,729 ft. tall! It has a total of 4.56 million sq. ft. of space, of which 3.81 million sq. ft. is rentable. It cost $950,000,000 (in 2005 dollars) to build, which is half as much as Taipei 101! 

         It was finished in 1973 for Sears and Roebuck; it's purpose was to consolidate the many different locations of Sears and Roebuck in Chicago. It held the record of tallest building in the world till  1998, at which time the Petronas Towers broke the record. In 2009, "Willis Group Holdings", a bank, occupied a large portion of the tower, at which time the tower's name was changed to Willis Tower. 

The structure of the building consists of nine square tubes clustered together in a square shape, each of which have a side length of 75 meters. When I say "tube", I mean a structure where the support is on the outside of the tower, not the inside. This gives more space in side the building. When Fazlur Khan designed this tower, it was the first time that tubes had been bundled together. Before, only one tube had been used; Khan decided that if one tube worked really well, why not nine tubes? So he designed the (then) Sears Tower with nine tubes in a square shape of varying heights. Here is an illustration of this:

All the tubes reach the 50th floor. There, two tubes end. The remaining 7 continue up to the 66th floor. There, two more tubes end. The remaining 5 continue up to the 90th floor, where 3 more tubes end. The remaining tubes reach up to the top of the tower. This gives the tower setbacks from the street, and gives it a less imposing look. 

This skyscraper is an icon of Chicago, and America.

I think it is very interesting.

                                                                  

Jardine House

I guess I am posting on a number of buildings in Hong Kong. Well, here's another:

I am posting on this building because it struck me as very interesting. It reminds me of a cheese grater without a handle on top. In reality, it is an office building in Hong Kong that is 585 ft. tall. It was completed in 1972 at which time it was the tallest building in all of Asia. It is the second "Jardine House" to be built. In my mind, it would have looked pretty modernistic in 1972. It looks very plain in the day time, but has an orderly sense about it.  At night though, the random pattern of lights changes it's appearance totally: during the day, the windows are darker than the facade, at night, vice versa. This building really stuck out to me.

Merry Christmas!

Bank of China Tower

This is the Bank of China skyscraper. It is designed around the division of the square into four right triangles:

I think the division is really cool. The tower was designed by I.M. Pei, who was famous for designing an Olympic Stadium. It is 1000 ft. tall (not including the two masts on top), with 72 stories. It is also the fourth tallest skyscraper in Hong Kong. Now, most of the floors are not used by the bank, but are rented out.

The building is supported by steel columns in the corners of the building. The weight of the building is transferred to these by the X shapes on the facade. In Hong Kong, the "feng shui" of a building is important to the people in Hong Kong. The "feng shui" idea is how the building looks in regard to traditions and superstition. When Pei was designing the building, he got feedback about the building, and modified by taking away to some extent the sharp edges of the tower, and masking (again, to some extent), the X shape. In the post I did of the HSBC main building (HERE), Foster put two lions in front of the building that were part of the old building:

They were praised as good "feng shui", and are considered lucky to the building, as they represent the two original owners of the Bank.

So, "feng shui" is an important part of Hong Kong architecture. Pei gave a lot of thought to it when he designed the tower. He wanted the tower to be accepted by the people.

This building is iconic, is one of I.M. Pei's major works, and is an integral part of Hong Kong's skyline.
I have always wanted to post on this building, so now I have. Merry Christmas!

The Petronas Towers

The skybridge

The interior of the skybridge

The Petronas Towers, located in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, are very interesting. Since their completion in 1998 for the Petronas Oil Company, they have held many records, and still hold some of them, with their height of 1,483 ft. For example, they still are the tallest twin towers in the world, and one of the towers by itself was the tallest building in the world. It was also the first building outside America to break the record of tallest building in the world. The towers each have 88 floors, and are connected by a two-story skybridge at the 41st and 42nd stories. The skybridge really helps to connect the two towers, symbolising a doorway or a gateway into the city. The skybridge is not really attached permanently to the towers, because at times the towers sway multiple feet in the wind, which would result in a cracked skybridge. Instead, when the buildings sway, it slides back and forth inside them. It also gives the towers some amount of stability when they are being blown by the wind. The tower is based on the shape of an 8 point star, with many elaborations added:

 While the towers are very tall, in my mind, they have a lot of horizontal emphasis. The towers have a distinct ribbed look, not a curtain of glass. This is because each window has a sunshade above it, and these are continuous along the top of the windows of each level. This is one of the reasons that the two towers have a horizontal emphasis. Another is the skybridge, which gives the two towers a bond, which is strictly horizontal. The towers are supported by extremely strong reinforced concrete. So strong, that there is no need to have a tuned mass damper in either of the towers. 


All in all, these twin towers are amazing buildings. 

Oriental Pearl Tower

This is the Oriental Pearl Tower; a random building I found on a list of tallest buildings and structures.

It serves different purposes ranging from communication broadcasting (it's main purpose), a revolving restaurant, a mall, a hotel, and others in it's location of  Shanghai, China.

It structurally consists of two main spheres connected by three pillars, which are supported by three columns. The largest sphere at the bottom of the tower has a diameter of 50 meters. The other main sphere has a slightly smaller diameter of 45 m. There is a total of 11 different spheres used for different purposes in the tower. There are fifteen different observatory levels throughout the tower. The highest one is located at a height of 1148 ft! 

#4 in the Norman Foster Series: HSBC Main Building

This is the headquarters for The Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited, otherwise abbreviated as HSBC. It is located in Central, Hong Kong. It is the fourth building built for HSBC in Central, all built in the same place. Here is the second one:

and here is the third one:

and the fourth one again:

The third building was at it's time of building, the tallest building between San Francisco and Cairo, Egypt.

It was also the first building in Hong Kong to be fully air conditioned.

The fourth building was was completed as of November 18, 1985, after 7 years of construction. The building costs, (calculated in the currency of that time), was Hong Kong $5.2 billion, making it the most expensive building built at that time. 

It is 178.8 meters tall, has 44 floors, and 1,065,627 feet squared. 30,000 tons of steel, and 4,500 tons of aluminum. It used elevators, but mainly escalators connecting every floor. The building is divided into 5 different parts as you can see in the picture above. To give more room inside, the supporting structure is on the outside. The framework is the detail that defines the building. It consists of 32 steel pillars in groups of 4, with supporting five triangular trusses that support and lock the pillars.

Like in all of Norman Foster's buildings, it is very energy efficient. Like in his Reichstag dome, he has a cone of mirrors at the top of the atrium, providing natural light, and cutting down costs. It has a sunshade, ( again, like in the Reichstag Dome), the cuts down the glare. The floor is made of panels that can be lifted up to access the power, or air conditioning, etc. Instead of fresh water being used in the air conditioning system, 

sea water is used, saving in transportation costs, as the building is right by a harbor.

This is a really cool building!