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Your Favourite High-rise Building in Adelaide
Posted: Thu Nov 25, 2010 10:47 pm
by iTouch
I thought it'd be interesting to see people's favourite High-Rise development in Adelaide. I'm kind of surprised it hasn't been mentioned before.:
Mine is either
Telstra House:
- Compliments to Emporis
EDIT:
or Australis House (Hindmarsh is good, but not as good as Australis)
Re: Your Favourite High-rise Building in Adelaide
Posted: Fri Nov 26, 2010 7:46 am
by yousername
You are kidding about the Telstra House. For the love of god tell me you're kidding.
My favourite is the Australis House
Re: Your Favourite High-rise Building in Adelaide
Posted: Fri Nov 26, 2010 8:30 am
by crawf
I quite like Telstra House, would be nice if they got rid of those blinds
Re: Your Favourite High-rise Building in Adelaide
Posted: Fri Nov 26, 2010 9:59 am
by Isiskii
My favourite building is the Grenfell Centre. 70's International at its best, the black glass is ever so moody and pretty.
Re: Your Favourite High-rise Building in Adelaide
Posted: Fri Nov 26, 2010 4:01 pm
by Prince George
Isiskii wrote:My favourite building is the Grenfell Centre. 70's International at its best, the black glass is ever so moody and pretty.
I'm with you on that one, and I liked it even better before the new shopfronts went into the former plaza at the front. It was our own "arriving late to the party" nod to the heady days of the International school, a tip-of-the-hat to the Seagram building.
Now, it's not high-rise, but my favourite building in the CBD at the moment is the Rip-Curl store on Rundle Mall. To me, thats one of the most exciting buildings that I've seen in Adelaide for a while: sharp, urban, and super-contemporary, and yet exemplary in its treatment of the heritage frontages beside it. Big thumbs up to the designers, and to Rip Curl for being prepared to make that extra investment.
Re: Your Favourite High-rise Building in Adelaide
Posted: Fri Nov 26, 2010 4:14 pm
by Splashmo
I'll echo the Grenfell Centre sentiments, but I really like the Air Apartments on Greenhill Road (the old ETSA building).
I wish we had buildings like this all surrounding the parklands and through the inner suburbs.
Re: Your Favourite High-rise Building in Adelaide
Posted: Fri Nov 26, 2010 4:18 pm
by Wayno
Standing alone in a sea of square boxes, i like Wave Apartments.
An yes agreed Splasho, Air is a good looker too.
Re: Your Favourite High-rise Building in Adelaide
Posted: Fri Nov 26, 2010 6:24 pm
by monotonehell
Prince George wrote:Isiskii wrote:My favourite building is the Grenfell Centre. 70's International at its best, the black glass is ever so moody and pretty.
I'm with you on that one, and I liked it even better before the new shopfronts went into the former plaza at the front.
It was our own "arriving late to the party" nod to the heady days of the International school, a tip-of-the-hat to the Seagram building...
+1
Wayno wrote:Standing alone in a sea of square boxes, i like Wave Apartments...
Oh very good. Have you considered a career in writing.
Re: Your Favourite High-rise Building in Adelaide
Posted: Fri Nov 26, 2010 9:08 pm
by iTouch
yousername wrote:You are kidding about the Telstra House. For the love of god tell me you're kidding.
Asif!! Telstra House is nice. It brightens the skyline up from a distance and standing between it and Grenfell makes you feel like you're in a big city
Re: Your Favourite High-rise Building in Adelaide
Posted: Fri Nov 26, 2010 10:35 pm
by Omicron
Ooh, there are a few.
- Former RBA on Victoria Square. What an exquisite, gently-curved facade, and how marvellous to see that the white marble has lasted so well. The penthouse with its wide balcony and overhanging shelter is classic mid-century design, and the podium has a delightful ornate finish to contrast the simplicity above.
- State Administration Centre. Such crisp lines on this one. It's unashamedly a box and makes no concession whatsoever to disguising this fact, but it has a restrained elegance and intriguing fine detail that many (most?) modern boxes lack. Fabulously well-preserved, too, and that's worth noting when so many buildings from this era are being cleared away.
- 1 KWS. A hybrid of RBA and State Admin, and equally as lovely. The recent refurbishment didn't do it any favours, with the new glass canopies being neither sympathetic nor sufficiently contrasting, but the crisp lines above cancel all that out.
- Westpac House. Surprisingly well-proportioned - unlike many Adelaide buildings which look like taller designs abruptly cut off at the top, Westpac is elegantly thin. A product of the no-expense-spared corporate '80s, and it shows in the granite, stone and polished metal of the lobby and the unique-to-Adelaide expanses of internal space at ground level. I don't know if it's a product of modern cameras or the aging of the granite, either, but I think it looks better now than when it was built.
- Grenfell Centre, with a crucial caveat - that one day the horrendous, cheap facade of the early '90s (?) refurbishment is removed and the original jet-black shiny glass is restored. Not quite as well-proportioned as Westpac, but it's nearly there. If only water restrictions/costs didn't exist and we could still have the cascading water-wall on the east side.
There are probably one or two more that I'm forgetting.
Re: Your Favourite High-rise Building in Adelaide
Posted: Sat Nov 27, 2010 5:54 pm
by jk1237
Wakefield House is prob my favourite. It looks so North American, how cool would it look twice the height. Although emporis reckons its brutalist, its very handsome in its concrete
Re: Your Favourite High-rise Building in Adelaide
Posted: Sat Nov 27, 2010 7:58 pm
by Xaragmata
Omicron has mentioned most of those I considered, but I have settled for Allegra Rendezvous - good looking, good "fit" for the location, absence of green glass, blinds and pods and a vast improvement on when it was built as Adelaide House in the 1970s.
http://www.rendezvoushotels.com/media/l ... %20web.pdf
Re: Your Favourite High-rise Building in Adelaide
Posted: Sat Nov 27, 2010 10:07 pm
by iTouch
I like that building too. It's so original yet awesome-looking
Re: Your Favourite High-rise Building in Adelaide
Posted: Wed Dec 01, 2010 10:25 am
by duke
Isiskii wrote:My favourite building is the Grenfell Centre. 70's International at its best, the black glass is ever so moody and pretty.
+1
Re: Your Favourite High-rise Building in Adelaide
Posted: Thu Dec 02, 2010 9:15 pm
by Xaragmata
duke wrote:Isiskii wrote:My favourite building is the Grenfell Centre. 70's International at its best, the black glass is ever so moody and pretty.
+1
The black glass was definitely moody - the panels had a habit of exploding without warning, which was why there was a mesh above the entrance for many years.