I just tried reading that article...i got about half way through before I had to bail. I really think you guys should get someone who knows architecture if you are going to keep writing about it, because it is just embarrassing to read this stuff.

Drivel

Saul Bass. Nice.

i completely agree. that article had no substance, it was dreamy in a totally annoying way. it had no point, and was a waste to read. i can't help but sound harsh. and it really brings down the rest of the writing in the stranger.

Um, the article is pretty good. It's not an in-depth study, but it hits at the truth in several points -- the classic era of American skyscrapers, which is long over, and never touched Seattle except lightly, in its early days with the Smith Tower; the horrible po-mo eighties, as bad here as anywhere; our position as a skyline, which rests ENTIRELY on the Space Needle (take that away and even Seattleites would have trouble identifying it); and so on.

What she touched on too briefly is the new era, which is in Asia, and which only tangentally has to do with extreme height. If you made a pie chart showing the portion of interesting modern high-rise construction, the sliver that would represent the US would be barely visible; entire worlds are being built in places like Shanghai, Kuala Lumpur, and Dubai that make anything in the US seem as forward-looking and relevant now as Buckingham Palace. We don't even know it's happening, while we fret over our Vancouverish condo towers (a twenty-five-year-old style) and our insignificant four-story-mixed-use projects.

The real action in the US is in the endless waves of mind-bogglingly ugly single-family homes that are going up in places like Marysville and North Bend. These dwarf our few condo projects in quantity and impact, and few of you Sloggers have even seen them. The important tall buildings in the US now are the medium-rise pre-fab boxes going up at the intersections of highways out in Edge City. Skyscrapers are far less significant today than they were in 1913.

I've just read the most important article on Seattle architecture ever written. It was dreamy, poetic, and had the muscle to lift our city's thinking and push all of us to the future. Thanks to all of you at The Stranger for excellent work, keep writing more articles just like this one.