I've been intrigued by this development from the beginning and I'm a fan. Is there anything cooler than this?
vancouverhouse.ca
Story in the Vancouver Sun:
Vancouver House is more than just another condo highrise, it’s become a building that almost everyone has an opinion about. Some love it for standing out in a sea of rectangular cuboid towers; others hate it as a symbol of the city’s real estate mania.
The first residential move-ins are expected next month, four years after construction began in 2015.
From the start, the 60-storey Vancouver House hasn’t been a typical condo project.
The differences that set it apart include how the unique challenges of the site were solved by a Danish architect and the contradiction between looking unsteady but being built to withstand double the most extreme earthquake predicted for Vancouver.
The site is one of a handful singled out by the City of Vancouver for special treatment. Situated by the southbound Howe Street on-ramp to the Granville Street Bridge, it was designated for a tall, distinct building at a gateway to downtown.
But the parcel of land at 1480 Howe St. had one big drawback: Its rectangular shape was reduced to a triangle because of a 30-metre safety setback from the bridge.
Architect James KM Cheng worked on a design for almost a year-and-a-half for Westbank Corp., the Vancouver-based international property developer behind Vancouver House.
“We were thinking what could be done as a triangle building,” he said. “You need a bigger building to make it financially economical. By the time you finish the elevators and exit stairs, you have nothing left to build condos.
Rest of the article here:
Well, the Eiffel Tower wasn't very well received either.
Sacre bleu, mon dieu, and zut alors!
But it didn’t take long for the landmark, by far the tallest building in the world, to win over the critics. Well more than a century after its creation, the Eiffel Tower stands for “glamour, modernity, romance,” as historian Jill Jonnes puts it. In other words, she says, “Frenchiness.”
