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Lisa Rochon (G&M) on Twisting Towers
From the Globe:
CITYSPACE
The latest twist in tower fashion
Spiralling skyscrapers are the newest eye-popping architecture, writes LISA ROCHON
By LISA ROCHON
Thursday, September 8, 2005 Page R3
The story of architecture has taken on a stunning twist. Skyscrapers, long confined to boxy vertical forms, are sloughing off their straitjackets and taking on kinetic bodies that twist.
In places of privilege, from Vancouver to Chicago to Malmo, Sweden, the twisting tower is the latest in signature, eye-popping architecture. These towers cost more - sometimes up to 30 per cent more. But, in an intensely competitive market, real-estate developers need to distinguish their buildings. More than a passing fad, the twisting towers have the potential to soften and humanize the hard, macho lines of the North American skyline.
In Vancouver, Arthur Erickson is designing two twisted towers. The first, currently under construction for the Concord Pacific Place development on the north shore of False Creek, resembles a DNA strand neatly summed up in 40 storeys. The floor plate rotates several degrees on every floor, creating the unique curve. Apartments are expected to fetch up to $1,000 per square foot. The second, designed by Erickson with Musson Cattell Mackey for a prominent site on West Georgia Street at Thurlow Street, is more radical in scale and more sublime in its twisted design. Part hotel, part apartment building, the 167-metre tower (approximately 65 storeys) is designed by Erickson to twist 45 degrees from bottom to top, requiring each floor to be offset 0.75 of a degree from the one located below.
Is the twisting tower pure sculpture or a matter of form following form with no care for function? From his office in Vancouver, Erickson explains how the spiral form responds specifically to site conditions. "As the tower went up to the 40th floor, it interfered with the view corridor in Vancouver and I guess most buildings step back when you come to that. I didn't want to step back. I wanted a continuous surface. So all we did was twist it." But, Erickson concedes that the twist has wreaked havoc with his floor plan. "It messes it up completely."
In capable hands, the twisting tower is elegant and alive with human energy. But interpreted by clumsy architects or for dubious reasons, it becomes just a giant contortionist -- a souped-up version of the Tower of Babel. The design strategy has its share of detractors. Santiago Calatrava's 190-metre high (54-floor) Turning Torso apartment tower in Malmo, Sweden, opened officially last week. It's a fascinating, early attempt at gyrating geometries -- one that has provoked plenty of attention and criticism in architectural circles. Was it necessary for the famed Spanish architect to stack and then twist nine cubes for the Swedish tower or was it mostly an exercise in extravagance, which ultimately forced the client to abandon plans to offer rental condominium units in favour of luxury apartments instead?
Where money's no object, the twisting tower offers plenty of sex appeal. Watch for the tide to rise. Last month, Calatrava unveiled his design for a 115-storey twisting skyscraper with a spire to be located on the Chicago lakefront. Apparently monumental heights, in spite of the post-9/11 climate of fear in the United States, are less formidable when designed with a gentle, effortless twist.
Once upon a time, tall towers, as designed by Chicago's pioneering modernist Louis Sullivan, consisted of three parts: a base, shaft and capital. In places of extreme wealth such as Dubai or exploding economies such as Shanghai, the mantra of developers has become, go for stupendous, often garish architecture to attract market share. New York architect Frederic Schwartz describes it thus: "It's base, shaft and who can do the strangest top."
The world of urbanity would be much the poorer without icons such as the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building -- architecture in the early 20th century that put on such fabulous airs with posh hats. And, I have to agree with A. Eugene Kohn, one of the founding partners of New York's famed firm Kohn Pederson Fox (KPF), that a city made up entirely of unleashed forms would grow tiresome. The orthogonal slab might be a sober affair but it does provide a marching order to North America's cities. The glassy point towers of the last decade have provided thin wedges of light to increasingly dense cities.
Sobriety in skyscraper design reigns in North America. The twisting tower will be tolerated but only as the occasional deviation from the rule. "With terrorism today in the United States and maybe Canada and even Europe, people don't want to stand out that much," says Kohn. KPF has designed the 492-metre (95-storey) Shanghai World Financial Center that, when completed in 2008, will be the world's tallest tower, accommodating offices in its lower half and the Park Hyatt in its upper levels. Although the tower doesn't twist, it is decidedly sculpted, with an elegant tapered body that rises to a monumental aperture at the building's apex. The tower's structural engineer, Leslie Robertson, designed a services core of reinforced concrete with walls 1.2 metres thick and interconnecting space frames previously used on the World Trade Center in New York.
Next to the architectural hoopla going up in the new Pudong business district in Shanghai, the World Financial Center is simple and sublime enough to be a stand-alone. Besides, argues Kohn, the tapering floor plates accommodate the needs and tastes of British, Asian and American tenants. Europeans tend to like the smaller floor plates, so they'll be located higher up than the Americans, who prefer sprawling office space. The huge hole at the building's top, besides being interesting to look at, helps relieve enormous wind pressures.
Taking architectural risks and asking people to lay down their heads to sleep in hotels high in the clouds is something that is happening as a matter of course in China, but no longer in the West. "China doesn't worry as much about terrorism. The Chinese feel their security is quite strong," says Kohn. "And they're trying to catch up and establish themselves as major financial centres."
How is that Arthur Erickson is designing the irreverent in Vancouver -- something more likely to show up in Shanghai? For one thing, Erickson has never shied from original, difficult ideas. As well, it was Simon Lim, a young developer from China who understands the power of distinctive, iconic architecture, who hired him on to produce the seamless, twisting tower. "This is his first major project and he has to prove to his family that he can do it," says Erickson. The West Georgia Street design recently gained unanimous approval from Vancouver's urban-design review panel. Now that Erickson has imagined it, the structural engineers on the job have to find a way to build it.
GB
From the Globe:
CITYSPACE
The latest twist in tower fashion
Spiralling skyscrapers are the newest eye-popping architecture, writes LISA ROCHON
By LISA ROCHON
Thursday, September 8, 2005 Page R3
The story of architecture has taken on a stunning twist. Skyscrapers, long confined to boxy vertical forms, are sloughing off their straitjackets and taking on kinetic bodies that twist.
In places of privilege, from Vancouver to Chicago to Malmo, Sweden, the twisting tower is the latest in signature, eye-popping architecture. These towers cost more - sometimes up to 30 per cent more. But, in an intensely competitive market, real-estate developers need to distinguish their buildings. More than a passing fad, the twisting towers have the potential to soften and humanize the hard, macho lines of the North American skyline.
In Vancouver, Arthur Erickson is designing two twisted towers. The first, currently under construction for the Concord Pacific Place development on the north shore of False Creek, resembles a DNA strand neatly summed up in 40 storeys. The floor plate rotates several degrees on every floor, creating the unique curve. Apartments are expected to fetch up to $1,000 per square foot. The second, designed by Erickson with Musson Cattell Mackey for a prominent site on West Georgia Street at Thurlow Street, is more radical in scale and more sublime in its twisted design. Part hotel, part apartment building, the 167-metre tower (approximately 65 storeys) is designed by Erickson to twist 45 degrees from bottom to top, requiring each floor to be offset 0.75 of a degree from the one located below.
Is the twisting tower pure sculpture or a matter of form following form with no care for function? From his office in Vancouver, Erickson explains how the spiral form responds specifically to site conditions. "As the tower went up to the 40th floor, it interfered with the view corridor in Vancouver and I guess most buildings step back when you come to that. I didn't want to step back. I wanted a continuous surface. So all we did was twist it." But, Erickson concedes that the twist has wreaked havoc with his floor plan. "It messes it up completely."
In capable hands, the twisting tower is elegant and alive with human energy. But interpreted by clumsy architects or for dubious reasons, it becomes just a giant contortionist -- a souped-up version of the Tower of Babel. The design strategy has its share of detractors. Santiago Calatrava's 190-metre high (54-floor) Turning Torso apartment tower in Malmo, Sweden, opened officially last week. It's a fascinating, early attempt at gyrating geometries -- one that has provoked plenty of attention and criticism in architectural circles. Was it necessary for the famed Spanish architect to stack and then twist nine cubes for the Swedish tower or was it mostly an exercise in extravagance, which ultimately forced the client to abandon plans to offer rental condominium units in favour of luxury apartments instead?
Where money's no object, the twisting tower offers plenty of sex appeal. Watch for the tide to rise. Last month, Calatrava unveiled his design for a 115-storey twisting skyscraper with a spire to be located on the Chicago lakefront. Apparently monumental heights, in spite of the post-9/11 climate of fear in the United States, are less formidable when designed with a gentle, effortless twist.
Once upon a time, tall towers, as designed by Chicago's pioneering modernist Louis Sullivan, consisted of three parts: a base, shaft and capital. In places of extreme wealth such as Dubai or exploding economies such as Shanghai, the mantra of developers has become, go for stupendous, often garish architecture to attract market share. New York architect Frederic Schwartz describes it thus: "It's base, shaft and who can do the strangest top."
The world of urbanity would be much the poorer without icons such as the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building -- architecture in the early 20th century that put on such fabulous airs with posh hats. And, I have to agree with A. Eugene Kohn, one of the founding partners of New York's famed firm Kohn Pederson Fox (KPF), that a city made up entirely of unleashed forms would grow tiresome. The orthogonal slab might be a sober affair but it does provide a marching order to North America's cities. The glassy point towers of the last decade have provided thin wedges of light to increasingly dense cities.
Sobriety in skyscraper design reigns in North America. The twisting tower will be tolerated but only as the occasional deviation from the rule. "With terrorism today in the United States and maybe Canada and even Europe, people don't want to stand out that much," says Kohn. KPF has designed the 492-metre (95-storey) Shanghai World Financial Center that, when completed in 2008, will be the world's tallest tower, accommodating offices in its lower half and the Park Hyatt in its upper levels. Although the tower doesn't twist, it is decidedly sculpted, with an elegant tapered body that rises to a monumental aperture at the building's apex. The tower's structural engineer, Leslie Robertson, designed a services core of reinforced concrete with walls 1.2 metres thick and interconnecting space frames previously used on the World Trade Center in New York.
Next to the architectural hoopla going up in the new Pudong business district in Shanghai, the World Financial Center is simple and sublime enough to be a stand-alone. Besides, argues Kohn, the tapering floor plates accommodate the needs and tastes of British, Asian and American tenants. Europeans tend to like the smaller floor plates, so they'll be located higher up than the Americans, who prefer sprawling office space. The huge hole at the building's top, besides being interesting to look at, helps relieve enormous wind pressures.
Taking architectural risks and asking people to lay down their heads to sleep in hotels high in the clouds is something that is happening as a matter of course in China, but no longer in the West. "China doesn't worry as much about terrorism. The Chinese feel their security is quite strong," says Kohn. "And they're trying to catch up and establish themselves as major financial centres."
How is that Arthur Erickson is designing the irreverent in Vancouver -- something more likely to show up in Shanghai? For one thing, Erickson has never shied from original, difficult ideas. As well, it was Simon Lim, a young developer from China who understands the power of distinctive, iconic architecture, who hired him on to produce the seamless, twisting tower. "This is his first major project and he has to prove to his family that he can do it," says Erickson. The West Georgia Street design recently gained unanimous approval from Vancouver's urban-design review panel. Now that Erickson has imagined it, the structural engineers on the job have to find a way to build it.
GB