apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

That building in the bottom photo is really cool! I love when older buildings are incorporated into newer ones.

as usual, I prefer the before, especially in the case of the bottom picture

ok, after seeing a few more pictures, i can appreciate some improvement, but I don't get how huge glass-steel monsters are still popular... time for a change of style

I feel the need to bring up Douglas Coupland's "City of Glass" and these buildings are ALL that downtown Vancouver looks like. http://www.amazon.com/City-Glass-Doug-Couplands-Vancouver/dp/1550548182.
Personally, I find it a little boring and bland. It does look great on a bright sunny day but if you know Vancouver weather, you know that that is not a terribly common occurence.
Worse than that, now it seems that it's not even distinctive.
Give me a heritage building any day.

I think some glass is good, some are atrocities. I think 110 3rd is kind of a mixed bag, but overall not so good. But the undulating glass monstrosity on Astor Place is just a crime against humanity. However, I do think Blue on the Lower East Side is way cool.

the crane falling at 111 Third kind of cooled any local enthusiasm for a building the design of which seems unresolved somehow.

There are lot of the glass oddities being built in my neighborhood -- East Village below Union Square -- and when considered individually -- only one or two are really, really bad -- however the whole is greater than the sum of the parts and the whole is aesthetically dreadful.

I almost always prefer the before.

That NYU building is particularly hideous.

That new building in the second pic is just awful! It looks like a transplant from Vegas.

I thnk glass is the thing right now because it is cheaper to build in the long run and probably cheaper to keep up in the long run.
I am not found of all that color going on though.
Ten years from now it will look really old and cheap.