Ultrarich complain that their superskinny tower is a shoddily-built mess

I’m imagining the chaos as the ultrarich argue who’s more important and should evacuate first; “Do you know who I AM??!!!”

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Yoink!

Also, you seem knowledgeable about good urban design. Any reading recommendations?

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You don’t get the pendant, the pendant gets you.

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A human is a machine designed to live one of my buildings.

– Le Corbusier

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Not really my coinage, but eminently yoinkable (I think I yoinked it from Cory Doctorow)

In terms of books, there are so many. I’ll give you some readable and accessible ones that don’t sink too much into wonkery. Jane Jacobs’ “Life and Death of Great American Cities” is a must-read. Mike Davis’ “City of Quartz” about L.A. is also excellent (as is Reyner Banham’s “Architecture of Four Ecologies” about the same city). Joel Garreaus’s “Edge City” is about suburbs and exurbs. There are also classics by the architectural critic Lewis Mumford and Frederick Law Olmstead (who designed Central Park). Richard Florida and James Howard Kunstler have written more controversial but still popular books on urbanism as well. I’d also recommend any episode related to urbanism or architecture of “99% Invisible”. I find they give a good introduction to a lot of the core concepts.

I’m sure others more knowledgeable than a dilettante like myself will have even more suggestions. One thing I can tell you for sure: well-built and designed or not, an 80+ storey building housing fewer than 200 residents (including servants living in the cramped tween-decks dormitories) at maximum capacity is not a sign of healthy urban policy.

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Helps when the owners spend 2 weeks of the year there, tops

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b602ba371c25f78b3f4342f064470fb3--poseidon-behind-the-scenes

That bit about a submarine earthquake was a cover-up of the real cause, though.

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They should let Mr Wiggins (of Ironside & Malone) design the next building for the ultra-rich.

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“The last 14 feet are heavily soundproofed”.

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“I’m sorry, did you say ‘knives’?”

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Rotating knives, yes”

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Related. Some of these buildings are still considered construction sites long after the owners (technically) took occupancy.

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At that scale, the difference between a violin and a cello is moot, since the sounds produced are well beyond the range of human hearing.

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Yes, but his handling

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This is the 21st century. There’s a whole new generation which refuses to conform to your hidebound rules of “handling”.

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i thought the original handling techniques were a lot more varied, and it was only more recently that people retro-codified it into one particular way.

fiddle players especially like(d) that position pictured ( so far as i understand ) though probably without the shoulder and chin rest :joy_cat:

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otoh…

image

image

http://www.baroque-violin.info/vhold1.html

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Cause only the elites play a stringed instrument…

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Yes. Anybody who can play a stringed instrument is part of an elite group. Those smug bastards

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Am I the only one who, upon seeing this skyline picture, sees the image of a 13th century Northern Italian city with its pincushion of impossibly high and thin family towers? The kind of structures that were built in an environment of unprecedented economic growth and a climate of mutual distrust and jealousy? The ones that mostly came down because the owners overextended themselves beyond the limits of their technology or because city planning decided that enough was enough?

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