'Why Europe Doesn't Build Skyscrapers?' They don't feel like it | Thoughts & Commentary

Watching/considering why Europe doesn't build skyscrapers. Drop a building you think is worth seeing down below! No literary recommendation, but there is music..

Music Recommendation(s):

[Cobbido]

Whenever an old building is demolished a horrendously ugly concrete monstrosity takes it place

[strgfyx]

You're 100% correct. Europe cities have beautiful old 500+ year old buildings n they want to preserve them. In Lisbon only high-rise buildings allowed are in the city borders.

[sipkestorm]

If you want to look into more urban planning, I would suggest the channel 'Not Just Bikes'. It's a channel by Canadian who now lives in Amsterdam, he makes some great comparisons between North American and European city planning, and explains why prefers the latter.

[LudoTechWorld]

"Does cities require cohesion?" It's a really American thing to ask ^^ As a European, it does, it can't even be a question, it's a fact!

[halwakka]

7:42 It's the Bosco Verticale (Vertical Forest) in Milan! :)

[scbscb]

I live in Utrecht Netherlands in a area that they planned a 262 meter high building (860ft) and would be the biggest building in the country at that time. The plan failed but i do remember the architect interview that told me everything i needed to know 'It would be seen by 5M people (about 30% of the country) on a daily basis'. He seemed very pleased and mostly motivated by forcing a large part of the country to look at his giant all day ...

[TheGabrielPT]

I visited Sagrada Família and went inside, in my trip to Barcelona and its awesome, really detailed.

Also if you go look the first picture of S.F. that they took in 1800s when it was being built, its crazy how they built Barcelona almost from scratch, it was deserted, and now look at the city.

[martinsbrugis]

Love that old modem sound you put in. 😂 I was sitting ther like : "Am I hearing that or.. I am, that's so funny!" you're so cool! ❤

[NoahFroio]

Green Onions, for the Win!! I have listened to this, really, just about all of my life, I am 6 years younger than the song, thanks for putting it back on my radar... Peace!

[EdMac]

While not about skyscrapers, I would highly recommend "The Pillars of the Earth" by Ken Follett. It's set in the Middle Ages, and is about a man whose dream is to build a cathedral. A number of years ago, I visited Edinburgh castle, and my appreciation of it was greatly enhanced because of what I had read in that fascinating book. BTW, if you look at the New York City skyline from either the Hudson River or East River side, you'll notice that the southern end of Manhattan features many skyscrapers, and then, as you look north, the buildings are quite small, and then the skyscrapers reappear as you approach midtown (Empire State Building). The reason is a feature of where the bedrock is located. The area immediately north of lower Manhattan does not contain the bedrock necessary to support tall buildings, but as you move further north, it is present again. Interesting video. As always, love ya.

[not_glad]

In London specifically, the bed rock is clay. Skyscrapers are being built now but it's much harder to do on soft rock. I used to have a view of the Gherkin from my flat until a skyscanner was built next door, after that it was more like 50 windows with a view into my bedroom.

[threestumps]

Hi NP, a great video from the B1M. I love tall buildings but I admire European cities that have chosen to take the opposite path and preserve their historic centres and mix it with low rise modern architecture. Very interesting!

This past week B1M published a video on Christchurch's long road back to rebuilding their city after the 2011 earthquake; focusing on their cathedral. Well worth a watch or a reaction video.

While Australian cities have taken the American road with tall buildings in the centre of town and sprawling suburbs; my city of Melbourne also produces some pretty slick buildings, tall and small. If not familiar, def worth a gander in your spare time. 🌁🌁🌆🌆

[Blues]

07:38 Its the "Bosco Verticale" in Milano, Italy.

[robertvirnig]

I am with you about not being emotionally connected to any skyscrapers. There is a part of me who is fascinated by science and technology and thinks it is cool that they exist, but it is more of an intellectual appeal. I certainly wouldn't want to live in one, especially after 911.

[mattpotter]

Not a huge fan of skyscrapers but some in London are quite cool, the Gherkin, the Walkie Talkie, the Shard, and some of the ones in the Canary Wharf/ Docklands area are quite cool as well. They should be kept well away from historic buildings though. In the 60s some concrete monstrosities were put up next the St Paul's Cathedral which was not great. As long as they are in areas of the city where redevelopment is needed it can work.

[threestumps]

Megatall - 600 metres or higher
Supertall - 300 to 599 metres
Skyscraper - 150 to 299 metres
High Rise - 50 to 149 metres
Medium Rise - 20 to 49 metres (or 5-10 stories)

[Hans_Unique_Handle]

One of the other reasons that other options are used instead of skyscrapers is one of efficiency. Building a single skyscraper requires more utilities, money, time and preparations. Also there are a lot more permits that are required as higher buildings can interfere with radar etc.

Another point is that unlike in the US, in Europe zoning is less black and white. In the US there seem to only be two types of zoning, freestanding detached housing and non-zoned areas. Where the non-zoned areas are often limited in size meaning that any density of housing/offices needs to be done in a much smaller area, making skyscrapers the ideal solution. In European cities there is a large area zoned for multiple types, meaning the density of housing/offices can be spread over a much larger area. This means there is much less need to optimize the density of housing/offices on a very small footprint area.

As noted in the video, as populations of cities in Europe increase more high rises are needed to facilitate the increased demand potentially also making sky scrapers more attractive.

[streaky]

There's definitely a balance - London manages this quite well, but London is geologically constrained in where skyscrapers can be built anyway - if there's enough cash on the table you can deal with almost any geological constraint, but there's almost never infinite money available. The deep clay in London means you need a lot of very very deep piles so outside 3-4 areas they're pretty impractical. The constraints on London geologically has let to quite a lot of innovative buildings - the new Google HQ for example at Kings Cross is a massive skyscraper: but on its side - and as a result is really interesting.

[eckligt]

When admiring skyscrapers from a distance, we should also be mindful of what's on the inside. There are exceptions, like the Eiffel Tower in Paris or the Space Needle in Seattle, and residential skyscrapers do exist, but mostly skyscrapers are office blocks, with bland open-plan or cubicle-filled spaces, repeating uniformly through most of the floors.

So when you see skyscraper office blocks, their presense is also an imprint of a certain type of corporate culture, and a certain organisation of cities, where workers are supposed to live in one zone, commute to a different zone where they're supposed to do menial work, before commuting back home to repeat the cycle. To be sure, there are lots of bland offices in low- and mid-rise development as well, but skyscraper offices are a tell-tale sign that the culture surrounding work and city planning is stuck in the past.

[madoxxxx]

Smart, great comments, reacting on my favorite channel B1m, plus really cute, subscribed!