This project is awesome! I think the last think we should complain about is the lack o customers. This is a very ingenious building, and I love the way it fits. I wonder what is the real double glazing cost and overall cost for this masterpiece...

Good points, Ross.

...but you can probably count on double glazing & blinds being in the purchase price. And, seriously: who buys an apartment at 1,500 feet without liking the view?

Privacy-wise, as was done with Lake Point Tower above, the architect will have calculated the angles so that people won't be able to see into each other's apartments.

I like the close-up aesthetically - it's sensuous, futuristic, appealing in a Jetsons way.

But I'm having difficulty visualizing what the apartment looks like - is it all a glass wall, a concave curved one? In other words, practicality-wise, if I lived there, my living room, bedroom, kitchen would have a curved floor to ceiling glass wall? Do I want that much glass, or do I want some outside portions a traditional wall, not glass, for privacy and for energy reasons?

Thanks for posting these images, Ross. I'd seen the lakeshore renderings before and wasn't all that impressed; the close-ups changed my mind.

The Spire has had to work it's magic on me. It's been on the drawing board for a while and I think it's proper home could only ever have been in Chicago, and it's fitting that it be close to another fave of mine--as you pointed out--Lake Point Tower, which was actually designed by two of van der Rohe's students but bears all of the modernistic style that started with his design for NYC's Seagram Building.

Isn't she gorgeous.

Are buildings feminine in gender? I think they must be.

Ross-

I have been somewhat divided over this prestigious work of "achitorture" (as the School of Architecture students at the University of Minnesoata dubbed themselves years ago).

On the one hand, it looks like a drill bit planted in the earth, viewed from a distance. But on closer inspection, the building surfave glides and slides in sinuous, captivating ways. VERY modern and futuristic looking. And sensational? - can one say that?

Does this inspire? It didn't at first, but it's growing on me.

PS my uncle, now a retired achitect, once had a condo in the nearby Mies van der Rohe Lake Point Tower, ie, the black skyscraper to the right! This new addition could well add and improve Chicago's magnificent focus along Lake Michigan.

"I like a building that doesn't feel like you are in a building."

Ah, a man after my own heart.

Cheers, Peter Cresswell

* * * *

'NOT PC.'
**Setting Brushfires In People's Minds**

ORGANON ARCHITECTURE
**Integrating Architecture With Your Site**

I see it now. That's much more impressive. And from the way the rooms are shaped you seem to get somewhere close to 180+ degree views from every room.

Nice. I like a building that doesn't feel like you are in a building. Pardon my previous skepticism! It looks to be wonderful.

I might have been a little confusing in how I said that.

The Burj is boring. Tall but boring, though better than the awful Taipei tower.

The Calatrava spire is good -- very good. His towers are not as good as his non-towers (bridges and terminals seem his forte) but a mediocre Calatrava is still better than almost anything else.

Cheers, Peter Cresswell

* * * *

'NOT PC.'
**Setting Brushfires In People's Minds**

ORGANON ARCHITECTURE
**Integrating Architecture With Your Site**

"But Chicago is built on the plains . . ."

True. But, Chicago's population had reached a million well before the end of the 19th Century, so the city had already expanded far out onto the plains when in 1871 the Great Chicago Fire destroyed the entire CBD. I'm thinking the early skyscraper builders had a blank, if scorched, canvas to build on, and did they ever. So, in a way the available land was restricted by Lake Michigan on the east, and the already urbanised city to the west. I suspect that zoning may have been bought in after the fire, and that, as we know all too well, artificially restricts development.

"The ground floor looks funny. I'd have thought that something that tall and grand would have had a more impressive lobby. Larger, more roomy and open."

Well, no. This is a fully residential building. Just living space. In my experience, the lobbies of residentials don't need, or aren't desired, to be lavish. The design, especially of the lobby, is pure Calatrava, and while I'm not a fan of everything the man has done, I am of this, and I initially had major reservations.

"I've worked in cavernous buildings my entire life and quite frankly it sucks when the interior of the building is claustrophobic and requires artificial lighting to illuminate the interior."

Well, this baby will be the opposite. In fact, those suffering from agoraphobia may run away, screaming.

Links to floor plans: 1 & 2.

Here's a render of the exterior. Don't get too close to the edge.

Given the design, I like to think what it's saying is 'Screw God'.

it appears to me like a futuristic Tower of Babel, thumbing its nose at those terminally earth-bound folk who tell us we're not allowed to reach for the heavens for that is the domain of God...

It reminds me of a drill-bit. Almost like the exposed tip of some hideous under-mining machine built by the cartoon-villains in the Batman comics.

The ground floor looks funny. I'd have thought that something that tall and grand would have had a more impressive lobby. Larger, more roomy and open.

But I'd have to see it in real life because unlike Peter, I can't translate 2D-drawings into 3D. One of my many mental defects.

I'd also like to look at what the interior space is like. I've worked in cavernous buildings my entire life and quite frankly it sucks when the interior of the building is claustrophobic and requires artificial lighting to illuminate the interior.

Take my current workspace. Each lab is arranged parrallel to a central, windowless corridor that must be lit 24/7 by electric light bulbs. The labs themselves only have 2 windows each mounted at shoulder hieght and ending about a foot from the ceiling. Natural light is so constricted in this concrete tomb that the labs themselves need artificial lighting - even at noon. I could go on, but you get the picture. Externally the buildings look average. The landscape around them is interesting and plush. All the effort has been put towards the exterior of the building. Inside they are a complete drag to work in.

If the building is depressing to live & work in I don't care how pretty it's exterior is, the building sucks! The building's primary purpose is to provide a superior work and living environment for the customer. Fail in that sphere and you might as well not have bothered.

Can you give us plebs a quick lesson in why it falls over for you, Peter... (I'm afraid there isn't a smiley to make that sound less sarcastic)... really, though, I'd like to know.

Indeed, indeed.

"...it's not how big it is, it's how you use it. I'll hug anything tall, but the Dubai towers, including the Burj, are stunts."

It is, and it's ugly. But Chicago is built on the plains . . .

Cheers, Peter Cresswell

* * * *

'NOT PC.'
**Setting Brushfires In People's Minds**

ORGANON ARCHITECTURE
**Integrating Architecture With Your Site**

Indeed a spire to inspire!!

...it's not how big it is, it's how you use it. I'll hug anything tall, but the Dubai towers, including the Burj, are stunts. Cunning stunts. Ever wondered why LA has so few skyscrapers? Plenty of land, that's why. Dubai has desert to burn, but still builds towers. It's like a cross between Disneyland and Vegas, but sans the charm of either. Still, good to see the Arabs doing something with all that oil money.

Two renders of the new base and foyer.

Last minute design changes made it five-sided instead of seven.

Defies gravity, doesn't it?

The Chicago Spire is great, but it doesn't stand up to the Burj Dubai!

BTW, I also go to SkyscraperCity regularly. Just do see what's up with skyscrapers and urbanity in general.