Down with squares and rectangles! Long live parallelograms!
Of course there are plenty of examples out there of plain shapes capturing the public imagination. The Empire State building was probably one of the first, but, I think, the most beautiful of the New York lot has to be the Chrysler Building.
Detail view of the steeple
Especially true when compared to some of its contemporary structures…
Midtown Manhattan, New York City 1932
But even this structure still follows the age old square base and brick (as in shape) walls. Modern skyscrapers have started to deviate from the brick, and it’s about time too.
Enter, Santiago Calatrava’s “Turning Torso” built in Sweden
Finished in 2005. Malmö, Sweden. Photo courtesy of Väsk
But even this is tame by comparison to some of the things yet to come. As designed by NL Artchitects, the new design proposal for the Groninger Forum is nothing short of amazing.
Side view
Frontal view including atrium and staircases
Perspective view
Interior structure including the stairs.
Top view really illustrates the base > top deviation. It only looks off balance, but the weight is evenly distirbuted to the base.
More detail on the company web site.
But the real cream of the crop when it comes to asymmetric (and truly a balancing act form) architecture has to be the Beijing CCTV building designed by Rem Koolhaas and Ole Scheeren.
Frontal view
Perspective view
But unlike the Groninger Forum which is still just beyond the design stage, this building is already under construction.
Under construction
Update 7:22PM
Shannon mentioned the asymmetric Boston suspension bridge in the comments.
Which reminds me of this one in Spain also designed by Santiago Calatrava.
Seville, Andalusia in Spain
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The asymmetric suspension bridge in Boston is pretty freaking cool, too. When I visited MIT, all my hosts were drooling over its architecture. :P
Did you mean the Bunker Hill bridge?
If it is, then yeah. That’s an awesome bit of architecture.
Its the result of D construction in architecture.
Hey! Long time no chat…
I haven’t been on Facebook at all lately. Actually, I never could get down to using the damn thing now that I registered.
so u rmbr me huh. oh i c. i was wondrn y. wished u on d 3rd 2. thot u vanished again for another 20 yrs.
im on ma 4th yr in archi.damn buzy wt work and projects. sory 4 ths late rply. Hapy belated birthday!
oopsy thos 2 anonymous rplys r frm me.
Thanks!
I don’t wish to be rude, but could you please not write like that? It makes it very hard to read.
im sorry. you take care!!!!
Thank you! :)
why are you thanking me? Will you be visiting Sri Lanka any time soon?
Thanks for the “take care” message ;)
Unfortunately work is keeping me here for the time being.
Cool!
I know nothing about architecture, but I know what I like and that’s things that are different and innovative. Not cookie-cutter sameness. How boring!
I’ve gotta wonder how these buildings would stand up to extreme weather conditions like flood, high winds ect.
I’m sure that’s been thought of already and remedied though. Amazing.
beautiful!
Indeed!
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good one!! UR brilliant
The CCTV headquarters is designed by famous architects but structural engineer is Sri Lankan born Engineer Cecil Balmont. It is an algorhythm which he users for to make these structures possible.
thanks.