The Deleted Scenes - The Lonely Tower
Last year I saw this tweet, and have been thinking about it for awhile: Here’s another one: I’m going to come back to this to write about it at more length, and have been looking for some information about it. Once you notice this, you see it everywhere. You see these apartment buildings—taller than pretty much anything proposed today except in urban cores or suburban “edge cities” (looking at you, Tysons Corner)—just sort of right in the middle of low-rise suburban sprawl, lacking any connecting urban fabric. Almost all of the ones I’ve seen around the D.C. area are from the 1960s or 1970s. That tracks with the fact that the 1970s and 1980s saw a huge number of “downzonings”—restricting what the zoning code permits to be built. The idea is that these large apartment buildings upset suburbanites so much that they forced a major change in what was allowed, and few were ever built after this period. Who knows how would have built in alternate universe without low-density codes? I wonder how different these suburban areas would look today, had these huge buildings 50 years ago been a starting point rather than a flash in the pan. Here’s a major one in my area: the Skyline Towers in Bailey’s Crossroads, in Fairfax County, Virginia. (It’s also the site of an infamous, deadly construction accident.) The towers were built in the early 1970s, and the whole set of buildings (not all of them pictured) includes both apartments and condos. Here are a couple of views of the complex: I’ve never seen any mention of the zoning and land-use issues surrounding these buildings. It’s a niche thing you’d have to search for to find. It’s an interesting, and unfortunate, hidden story in how suburbs could have been more inclusive and architecturally varied. Perhaps it’s also a lesson in urban design—these resemble “towers in a park” far more than a true urban fabric. They bring density, but they do nothing to alter the fundamentally suburban pattern. As noted, I’ll be doing a second, longer piece on this. Have you noticed this pheneonon? Do you know anything about it in particular? Leave a comment! Related Reading: When Small Towns Wanted Tall Buildings What If Suburbia Still Looked Like This? Please consider upgrading to a paid subscription to help support this newsletter. You’ll get a weekend subscribers-only post, plus full access to the archive of over 300 posts and growing—more than one full year! And you’ll help ensure more material like this! You’re a free subscriber to The Deleted Scenes. For the full experience, become a paid subscriber. |
Key phrases
Older messages
Signs of Change
Monday, April 11, 2022
Change with continuity is a reasonable redevelopment compromise
Rooted or Units?
Saturday, April 9, 2022
Continuity is good, NIMBYism isn't
Rooted or Units?
Saturday, April 9, 2022
Continuity is good, NIMBYism isn't
Am I a Content Creator?
Friday, April 8, 2022
Thoughts on this newsletter and the evolution of one-man projects
Ghost Buildings
Friday, April 8, 2022
What Do You Think You're Looking At? #52
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