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Forums: Architecture, Skyscrapers, International High Rise Prize, Torre Agbar, Jean Nouvel
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LINK TO So Tall: International High-Rise Prize 2006 Goes to Barcelona's Torre Agbar by Jean Nouvel
Part of the article by ArchNewsNow
May 22, 2006

"Spain's star continues to rise in the architectural firmament with the announcement on May 16 of the winner of the second International High-Rise Prize: the striking 142-meter-high Torre Agbar, headquarters for the Catalan metropolis's water utility, Aigües de Barcelona/Sociedad General de Aguas de Barcelona SA (known as Agbar), designed by Paris-based Ateliers Jean Nouvel.

The innovative façade of the 35-story tower sports aluminum panels in 25 different colors mounted to the concrete skin. Depending on the time of day, the tower's skin changes from dramatic red to blue hues, topped by a white dome of glass and steel. Positioned in front of 4,400 square windows in the concrete shell, 60,000 glass blinds form an additional outer skin that that optimize transparency from the interior of the building while providing thermal protection.

The jury also issued four commendations, all of them for residential high-rises. They are: the 190-meter-high Turning Torso in Malmö, Sweden, by Santiago Calatrava (Valencia and Zurich); the 106-meter-high residential Wienerberg sky-rise by Delugan Meissl Architects (Vienna); the 152-meter-high Montevideo in Rotterdam by mecanoo architecten b.v. (Delft); and the 100-meter-high mixed-use project Jian Wai SOHO in Beijing by Riken Yamamoto & Field Shop (Yokohama)."

from Ateliers Jean Nouvel: Torre Agbar, Barcelona

http://www.archnewsnow.com/features/images/Feature0193_01x.jpg

photo - Phillipe Ruault

the Torre Agbar facade

http://www.archnewsnow.com/features/images/Feature0193_02x.jpg

photo - Phillipe Ruault

the dome on the Torre Agbar

http://www.archnewsnow.com/features/images/Feature0193_03x.jpg

photo - Phillipe Ruault

Santiago Calatrava: Turning Torso, Malmö, Sweden

http://www.archnewsnow.com/features/images/Feature0193_04x.jpg

photo - Pierre Mens

mecanoo architecten: the Montevideo, Rotterdam

http://www.archnewsnow.com/features/images/Feature0193_05x.jpg

photo - Rob Hart

Delugan Meissl Architects: Wienerberg sky-rise, Vienna

http://www.archnewsnow.com/features/images/Feature0193_06x.jpg

photo - Hertha Humaus

Riken Yamamoto & Field Shop: Jian Wai SOHO, Beijing

http://www.archnewsnow.com/features/images/Feature0193_07x.jpg

photo credited to Riken Yamamoto & Field Shop

Thanks to archnewsnow.com for the info.

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Purely subjective ~ I prefer the Turning Torso. But maybe every great city needs a huge phallus rising from it's skyline ...

:wink:

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I prefer it too, despite the positives for the Torre Agbar described in the text. (I just didn't want to be the first one to vote.)

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I was properly awed ,but couldn't select a favorite.

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I picked the turning torso as well.

though the others were fabulous.. they are just diffrent versions of the everyday tall 'box' style sky scraper.

The turning torso is a totally diffrent style all together and I love that.

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Another vote for the turning torso.

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What bothers me about Calatrava's - a guy whose work I usually like - is how out of scale it is for the neighborhood. I might be pretty snarly about it if I lived next door. But that is not his fault, I don't think; would have been what he was hired to do. And it's sort of trickstery, in that I get a kick out of the photo of it, but it might not wear well to be seeing over the years.

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they are no doubt "engineering marvels" but i have difficelty choosing a favourite .
(to qualify : some of the "old" new york skyscrapers are still my favourites )
hbg

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I still love the Chrysler Building..
and now I love that Chicago Building, forget it's name, something about Carbide and Carbon, also an older bulding.[

link - http://www.architecture.uwaterloo.ca/faculty_projects/terri/steel/gallery_images/skyscraper/DSCN5918_resize.JPG

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(i seem to like a bit of 'pomp' - no circumstance Very Happy

!)
hbg

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What I don't like:

http://readingcities.com/images/uploads/ROM-Groundshot.jpg

Take a Victorian-era museum in need of renovation and call in a big-name architect who grafts his "crystal" ideas onto it with no sensitivity to the scale or architecture of the original. IMO this will quickly appear to be a mistake.

Ok ~ I know it's not a skyscaper, but any opportunity for an architecture rant .... Razz

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Oh, yikes, what is that? I like some old-new riffs, not entirely against them, but in this case..

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Royal Ontario Museum meets David Libeskind.

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We drove past the ROM last night. Funny how the skeleton of the project looks better than it seems it will look when it's completed.

I liked the Montivedeo best of the options given. Sometimes Old School just works best for me.

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I might feel differently about that ROM if the attachment weren't so ... bulky, so un...equilibrated somehow. Almost could be taken for a joke as in the monster eating the cookie.

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http://www.daniel-libeskind.com/projects/pro.html?ID=45#more

Quote:

This building tells a unique and a particular story which crystallizes ROM's programmatic content and the singularity of the site. The Crystal transforms the secretive and fortress-like character of ROM, turning it into an inspired atmosphere dedicated to the resurgence of the Museum as the dynamic centre of Toronto.

we'll see

Toronto's been making some errrrrrr interesting design choices lately.

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I like the building with the "M" on it. The variation, the three different uses of materials/the colors the funky M. Twisting torso is ridiculous only because it doesn't fit with the landscape. It would be fantastic among other skyscrapers.

I love the museum built on the side of the old building. It's so discordant, but somehow it works.

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Here's a photo of the bottom of the Carbon and Carbide building (Burnham) that I took in Chicago.. I had trouble finding the photo earlier. It holds down Michigan Avenue nicely. Joe from Chicago first mentioned it to me, and then the next day I passed it.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v722/ossobuco/carbide.jpg

Yeh, I have that trouble too, on the Turning Torso, Gala.. but I voted for it.

I'd like to see a full view of the Montevideo...

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On the ROM, to clarify, I meant that the area of connection was bulky, not so much complaining about the entire 'crystal' building. Well, not love at first sight anyway.

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