In Which Skylines Feel The Brunt of This Recession
Thursday, May 29, 2008 at 6:27PM
Will

Our Penises Point to the Sky

by Alex Carnevale

When men are tired of reading articles about how women enjoy pornography (this will not be soon) they like to regal each other with tales of long-away lands. You may not know this, they will tell you, but in a past life my penis was a skyscraper.

Calgary's new green skyscraper:

"Imperials" - Ratatat (mp3)

After a penis perishes, it may also be resurrected as a shopping mall, or what they're calling "green" skyscrapers.

Basically they're saying, we're going to build a big ugly thing that you have to look at all day, and we'll tell you it's good for you.

san fran...what a pointy phallus. also, new green skyscraper in Philly

In New York, where I live, another skyscraper is who cares. The taller the better, whatever. But in Calgary? That city's already full of Canadians. A penis doesn't actually improve things, it just attunes you more closely to what you're missing.

dan murray's moneymaker in a past life

Buildings should serve their real purpose, me and Mark Cuban. Of course, you have to get there in style. My ride is Project Genesis:

Project Genesis reminds me a lot of this fake town Disney built in Florida, Celebration. I don't know why this town fascinated my dad, but we made two separate trips there. Did my dad harbor a secret desire of becoming a periodontist in a commune-like community where there was only need for one?

I remember asking a professor of mine about planned communities. He referred me to Walden Two, where violent conditioning makes people happier. Such a scintillating entree in libertarianism for a young AC!

Royal Caribbean's Project Genesis

glass panel falls from up high

the new skyscraper in all its guises

Mujica:

more at sm

"Hundred Story City in the Neo-American Style" is the creation of Francisco Mujica, a Peruvian-born architect, artist, historian, and archeology professor who proposed a historical link between the distinctive ìsetbackî shape of American skyscrapers and the pre-Columbian pyramids of Central America. Visiting New York in 1926, he became fascinated by the parallels in the ancient and modern forms, and he spent the next three years traveling the United States, researching skyscraper history and meeting with prominent architects. In 1929, he published the impressive and rare folio History of the Skyscraper, on view in the exhibition, which is both a history and a thorough survey of recent high-rise buildings. In it, he included many of his own archeological drawings and he wrote: "the structural form the skyscraper has come to adopt is next of kin to our Indian pyramids."

"Shiller" - Ratatat (mp3)

"Dura" - Ratatat (mp3)

from bldg blog

Sometimes, to get away from it all, you need a John Galt type situation. I always thought it would be sweet to live in an empty Penn Station, especially with three different Subway locations and a full service K-Mart, but the above is cool, too.

desert retreat for world leaders

deep water city states

supercities

one hundred years of high rises

the tallest towers

Since it doesn't appear that another round of spirited babymaking will be occurring anytime soon, a vertical society is a future we have cannily avoided through birth control and rampant homosexuality. The only possible threat to our space concerns would be if skyscrapers started reproducing. Apparently the French may be able to make this happen:

leave it to the french to build a penis with a vagina inside it

remaking Boston

Manhattanhenge

dreaming of more vertical cities in asia

another skyscraper in Warsaw

remaking Tokyo - playa!!!

nesting in skyscrapers:

crazy building in Louisville:

Hopefully the future includes having three penises at once. Then all your penises can be reborn as skyscrapers. And then when the skyscraper dies, it can live inside your pants forever.

Alex Carnevale is the editor of This Recording.

BONUS ARCHITECTURAL COVERAGE YOU GET FOR FREE

This is the new Rays stadium. The Rays improbably have the best record in baseball, and I love this stadium. I would go to every game. Right on the water like that is delightful, and it's open to the surrounding area in a very peaceful way. I love that it looks like a spaceship from the above angle.

also, the new Dallas Cowboys stadium

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