Types of Towers

Posted by Twelvebit (Victoria, United States) on 19 September 2007 in Architecture.

I shot this with my cheap little pocket camera looking out from downtown Houston to the "burbs." You can just about tell the order in which these buildings were constructed by looking at them. It's interesting how quickly some of this architecture has dated.

Also interesting, to me anyway, is the design of the building in the right foreground. The windows at the bottom look misaligned, like they might look when images being stitched together in a panorama shot don't quite match up. But this misalignment is intentional --and ugly. Note how the larger panels on the 4th row left (from the bottom) are mirrored in the larger 11th row panels on the right --where the misalignment stops and the building is returned to symmetry. This makes me wonder if the floors in the lower part of the building are offset. If they aren't then this design is ugliness for its own sake.

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Comments (5)

MaryB from Staffordshire, United Kingdom

Wow! I don't think I've ever seen buildings as tall as these!
A great capture

19 Sep 2007 3:26pm

@MaryB: Thank you. There are some tall buildings in Houston, and with some surprisingly small footprints in relation to height, but not even in London? I'll admit, I don't remember any really really tall buildings last time I was in London, but that was over ten years ago, and Houston is much smaller and more concentrated, so I might easily have missed the tall stuff. What's killing me about the UK right now is that with the Pound about twice the dollar, the DVD's I order from over there have become very expensive. And strange it is, but there are some American movies that I have to order from the UK because they're not available in the US --not to mention an occasional BBC series like Quatermass.

Amir from ?, United States

Awesome shot with your little camera. Cameras are very capable these days, regardless of size and price. You have done great with wonderful observation.

P.S. I will answer to your previous post in a short time.

19 Sep 2007 4:42pm

@Amir: I made a couple rather long replies to your questions and remarks, and then thought the better of it. I removed both your questions and my replies and sent you my replies as a separate message. Unfortunately, the message feature seems to have eliminated the formatting and punctuation, so it may be hard reading.

Shar from Regina, SK, Canada

The post work makes this pop!

19 Sep 2007 10:01pm

@Shar: Thank you. This one couldn't stand a lot of PP because my little camera won't do RAW files. I did crank it up a little with Photomatix --with the effect and saturation at about 30% or so-- and I increased density in Photoshop in order to improve the mid tone contrast.