The Spiral Staircase

One of my first posts on Creative Destruction (my nearly dead group blog) featured comments on a twisting skyscraper design, the Fordham Spire (now the Chicago Spire — cool flash website here) meant to start going up any old day now. That post still draws some hits. Well, it seems that the new self-proclaimed skyscraper capital of the world has copied the twisting building idea (the first is actually a building called Turning Torso in Malmo, Sweden) and intends to erect the Infinity Tower:

(For the politically correct feminist folks, erect is the proper word, since these buildings represent phallic, patriarchal triumphalism in the extreme.) Perhaps it’s such an attractive design that it bears repetition, one per city, let’s say. Whether post-industrial economics can continue to thrust multiple supertall buildings skyward remains to be seen, but for a short while at least, it seems that the undeniable appeal of multibillion-dollar projects with futuristic design aspects will continue to cast aside more humble aspirations.