Visionary and Canceled Projects & Proposals | Discussion

Nightmare Airport

Rendering by iProspect for Barratt London

Battery Park Apartments

Other cities (Chicago, Philadelphia) and others can also be posted.

for example


The Olympic in Los Angeles

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More will be posted on Philly YIMBY this month

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Frank Lloyd Wright’s proposed apartment towers next to St. Mark’s-in-the-Bowery Church, NYC 1927. They would have been the first glass curtain wall skyscrapers in NYC.

Convocation Tower by Bertram Goodhue, 1921. Current site of the New York Life Building.

Raymond Hood’s “Skyscraper Bridge” concept, NYC 1925. Rendering by Hugh Ferris.

“The Fashion Building” by William Bergen Chalfant, Fifth Avenue, 1930.

Of course, the Metropolitan Life North Building by Harvey Wiley Corbett, NYC 1928.

Two towers that would have replaced Grand Central Terminal:

The Hyperboloid by I. M. Pei, 1956.

175 Park Avenue by Marcel Breuer, 1968.

Richard Rogers’ tower on top of the PABT, 2008.

Renzo Piano’s City Tech Tower, Brooklyn 2008. Would have been Brooklyn’s first Supertall.

23 East 22nd Street by Rem Koolhaas, NYC 2007.
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111 First Street by Rem Koolhaas, Jersey City 2006.
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Daniel Libeskind’s proposed condo tower above One Madison Avenue, NYC 2008.

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NYSE Tower by David Childs/SOM, NYC 1999.

Fumihiko Maki’s UN Expansion Tower, NYC 2006.

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Astor Place Hotel by Rem Koolhaas and Herzog & de Meuron, NYC 2000.

Riverside Center by Christian de Portzamparc, NYC 2005 (site of Waterline Square)

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Here’s my big list of unbuilt postmodern towers over on the Old Skyscraper Renderings thread: Old Skyscraper Renderings and Construction - #58 by DeSelby

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Some unbuilt Frank Gehry skyscrapers

NY Times Building competition entry, NYC

Cleveland apartment tower

Los Angeles tower

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City Tower, Philadelphia, designed by Louis Kahn in 1952. This 700 foot tall office tower for Philadelphia municipal workers was structured around a tetrahedral concrete space frame that was highly innovative for the 1950s. It surely would have been the most technologically advanced skyscraper in the world had it been constructed. Though unbuilt, Kahn’s City Tower influenced later buildings such as Norman Foster’s HSBC Tower and Hearst Building, and SOM’s John Hancock Tower.

A model of the tower at the traveling exhibition Louis Kahn: The Power of Architecture

Kahn’s section drawings of the tower
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Kahn (right) with a model of the building

With glass

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SkyVoid 1300 feet tall

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I hope something this awesome gets built when those ugly garages are eventually redeveloped. Such a blight on this part of Lower Manhattan. Of course those garages are where the annual 9/11 tribute spotlights are located, but those could probably be moved to a barge or something.

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This drawing displays one of the earlier designs for a Pennsylvania Station featuring a hotel tower sitting on top of the General Waiting Room. Alexander Cassat, then President of the Pennsylvania Railroad, sought ways to make the station a source of revenue. Charles McKim, the official architect of Pennsylvania Station, was famously afraid of heights, and his disdain towards vertical development could have influenced the decision to move the design without a tower and emphasize on the horizontality of the station.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BqIXJp3FZsd/

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bm8LaXbgO7E/

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Man that SkyVoid would be really cool at that location.

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I want this built now!

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Concept rendering of Hudson Spire + The Hudson Yards – image originally from Related.

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Wished that tower would be built. Would’ve dominate not only Hudson yards but the manhattan skyline as well

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The unbuilt Hyperboloid (Grand Central Tower)

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American Commerce Center, Philadelphia

There is also a whole unbuilt series on Philadelphia YIMBY. I will post them on here soon

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South Ferry Plaza, NYC

In 1985, eight developers submitted proposals for an office tower on top of the Staten Island Ferry terminal. This is one of the most visible sites in the city, right on the water at the tip of Manhattan by Battery Park. The winning design was an Art Deco-inspired glass-topped tower designed by Frank Williams and Fox & Fowle, but it was shelved in 1991 due to a poor office market in Lower Manhattan.

Winning design- Frank Williams and Fox & Fowle
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Design by Kohn Pedersen Fox


Design by Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer, Emery Roth & Sons and Hooker/Siskind

Design by Davis Brody & Associates

Design by Clark Tribble Harris and Li

Design by Helmut Jahn



Design by Skidmore Owings and Merrill/Beyer Blinder Belle


Design by Arquitectonica

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I might have more images of Helmut’s design. I’ll post those when I can

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Also

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The Unbuilt Chicago Tribune Centre

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