After several years of bad residential buildings being thrown up across the Chicago skyline I was looking forward to something of significance being built. With the summer coming to a close Trump Tower is almost completed and I have to say the taller it has become the more disappointed I am with it as a piece of architecture and how it relates as a sculptural neighbor.
From a distance some of the materials have an pleasing aesthetic quality but the closer to the building you become the design starts to break down. The materials don't hold up and the overall design really lacks the elegance of the IBM building next door. Some of the sight lines are dramatic especially from Lake Shore Drive at the river but what we've ended up with is a sky blue Sears Tower with rounded edges and a squatier bottom. Maybe if it was in another location in the city it wouldn't be critiqued so critically and that space could of been reserved for something to compete with the buildings going up in Dubai or Asia.
Hopefully over time as other building go up around it Trump Tower will grow on me but until then I find it very uninspiring.
China's new 101 story Shanghai World Financial Center recently opened for business. The design is so simple and elegant it effortlessly links the earth to the sky. The tension between these simple geometric shapes is a great reminder that sometimes simplicity leads to the most dramatic solutions. 
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