The Diamond Zephyr

A few years ago, a client asked me to "draw up some plans" for some garden apartments (flats, two levels high) on a slender piece of land near the university here in town.

I had designed a couple of small apartment projects for him before so I knew what he expected. But after two projects with fairly conventional massing, I thought it was time to expand horizons.

When I presented the design concept, I showed him the garden apartment scheme and he thought it was dandy.

And then.

And then I pulled this out. The Diamond Zephyr.

"Look," I said. "You can have the same number of apartments, but instead of going out, go up!"

Spectacular views. An architectural icon clearly visible from the Interstate and most parts of town. What an opportunity!

He didn't buy it.

Nevertheless, here she is ... lonely... proud ... looking for a new owner. Any takers?

Price Tower's Baby Daddy

perspective image: the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation
plan image: Francis Ching



Frank Lloyd Wright started working in earnest on a rotated plan skyscraper in the late 1920's when he proposed a series of towers for St. Mark's in-the-Bouwerie in New York.

Rector William Norman Guthrie, who had hired Wright to design a home (unbuilt) for him in 1908 when he was teaching at the University of the South, was quite the client. Known for being an extremely unorthodox and flamboyant member of the Episcopal clergy, Guthrie saw an opportunity to return "beauty" to the church.

He once wrote Wright "to do anything at St. Marks meant to be an ecclesiastical outlaw."

The towers, intended to be erected for the purpose of generating income for the parish, were to be eighteen stories high springing out of a lush, park-like setting at ground level.

Notice the similarity of the St. Mark's plan to the Price Tower plan (in the previous post) composed a quarter of a century later.

Sadly, the St. Mark's project stopped when contractor's cost estimates came in - as Guthrie put it - as "terrible factual revelations."

The Mountain Spire on Mount Inspire

I've heard many people dismiss cellphone towers out-of-hand as a blight on the landscape. I suppose that comes from the fact that most cell towers ARE a blight on the landscape.

Let's face it, an appeal to the aesthetic sensibilities of modern man is generally not very high on the priority list of those putting up said towers, and more likely not on the list at all.

But what if cell towers took on new life? A public observation deck, energy-producing wind turbines mounted to the frame, housing - I hesitate to say the possibilities are endless, but there are certainly a great many undeveloped opportunities.

Some existing towers, by virtue of interesting geometric framing, can be quite beautiful. Here and there, an effort is made to make a tower "more than a steel stick," but a decade into the new millennium, those occasions are rare. The next generation of towers will be characterized by a conscious effort to incorporate "elegance" into the design.

Single use towers may indeed someday be a thing of the past.

Organic Skyscraper of the Future

Ah, yes - sketchbooks!

Any takers for an apartment in my skyscraper of the future? Grown from hybridized seed, then dried, shellacked and furnished. Perfect urban "oasis in the clouds."

I've claimed the penthouse on level 333 complete with heliport and man-glider launching pad.

Will you be my neighbor?