American reacts to 'Why Europe Doesn't Build Skyscrapers'

Thank you for watching me, a humble American, react to Why Europe Doesn't Build Skyscrapers
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[@mif4731]

We do build Skyscrapers but we don't build them in the "old Towns".

[@mildlydispleased3221]

Except London...

[@rosshart9514]

​@@mildlydispleased3221 ...Frankfurt, Istanbul, Paris and Moscow.

[@Soken50]

@@rosshart9514 No, there are no skyscrapers in historical Paris, it's specifically restricted to that tiny skyscraper island away from the historic city

[@mildlydispleased3221]

@@rosshart9514 They still have historic centres, London does not.

[@markwolstenholme3354]

​@@mildlydispleased3221 I believe it's to do with air space in London, only allowed to go to a certain height.

[@Boudi-ca]

I do think there’s a place for sky scrapers within the financial hubs of a city, but we must preserve the history and culture of a city on the whole at all costs!

[@bakersmileyface]

What if that cost is the lives of you, your family and everyone you ever knew?

[@aedommea]

@@bakersmileyface then I would sh*t on a bible and build one skyscraper

[@costaskl6589]

@@bakersmileyfacehow exactly?

[@bakersmileyface]

@@costaskl6589 If the evil corporations hold them all hostage of course. How else?

[@trilikvlt]

@@bakersmileyface I'm not a fan of skyscrapers, but agree with the comment above. How so ? What do you even mean by that

[@rolfoleynik6925]

Beijing has skyscrapers. To build these, they demolished old historic parts of the city. They want to avoid that in Europe..

[@silviahannak3213]

Demolishing old historic Parts? What ? Why? No!

[@DuBaas007]

@@silviahannak3213 The US has done the same. Really cozy streets full with life in the past were turned into soulless city centres with highrise offices and car parks.

[@lucasrego3874]

@@DuBaas007 the thing in the US is that those cities didnt really have any history to preserve. Although ppl in Europe dont like skyscrapers, i would say the main reason why is that they would completely destroy the identity of cities that were formed over hundreds if not in some cases thousands of years. That's why ppl were so much against it when skyscrapers were starting to get built.

[@DuBaas007]

@@lucasrego3874 The USA still used to have good, livable cities, that weren't soulless.

[@UlliStein]

Yes, and Europe is big enough to have both, like in Paris or London.

[@OriginalPuro]

Just so it's said, no one in Norway likes the skyscrapers in Oslo or anywhere else, we tolerate them because they are in a slightly remote area from the city center, but we don't like them. Skyscrapers are what he said, "soulless".

[@Boudi-ca]

I agree. I would hate for skyscrapers to take the historic beauty away from my capital, London.

[@daking912]

@@Boudi-ca i like some of the skyscrapers in london, especially the shard and stuff so i wouldnt say it would takeaway the historic beauty especially since historic places r around every corner

[@vHindenburg]

Most of them are soulless, besidies the vintage ones up to the Empire State building, after that it goes down hill... But simply put there is almost never aneed for anything that is more than 5 stories high. Higher and you are going to need an elevator. In addition in terms of fire safety shyscrapers are a nightmare, and in the face of falling brithrates I am just not seeing the necessity for scycrapers, and to be honest most of them are a vanaty affair.

[@Kari.F.]

I'm not sure Postgirobygget in Oslo would qualify as a skyscraper anymore. But they must have put a lot of effort into making it the blandest and most boring eyesore possible.

[@vHindenburg]

@@Kari.F. I just checked how a Skyscraper is defined, according to Wikipedia anything 100m+ might qualify with regional variance, there fore Colonge Kathedral with 157m might qualify. ( And nothing in sight of the Dom is allowed to be taller than the Dom) But there are even worse buildings out there, Liege (Lüttich) in Belgium is really painful because they are actually in the historical town.

[@SiqueScarface]

6:15 The joke goes like this: Which is the most beautiful place in Warsaw? On top of the stalinist Pałac Kultury i Nauki. Why? Because from there, you can't see it.

[@misiopuchatek152]

The other one. What’s the best thing you could do in Warsaw? Buy a train ticket to Cracow 😅

[@Luck9nN]

I get why many poles hate it, but as a czech I gotta admit, it is beautiful, much better than what the soviets build in prague - hotel international xd it has the same vibec but is like 5x smaller

[@TheMaxi5757]

we have the exact same joke in Paris with the Montparnasse Tower lol, this thing looks absolutely horrendous and you see it from everywhere

[@Luck9nN]

@@TheMaxi5757 but to be honest, monparnasse is actually hideous xd palace of culture and science is hated, because it was build as a gift from stalin xd

[@UlliStein]

That joke was made about the Eiffel tower first. And now we all love it. So just wait a bit, people will get used to it.

[@alexialu4224]

In Italy, except for Milan, if you build a skyscraper anywhere 90% of the people that live in the area will hate it ahaha

[@usualunknown1950]

And I'm glad about that... Italy is too beautiful to destroy it with modern shit...

[@independentthought3390]

It's like that pretty much everywhere in Europe, except maybe in a few select cities, like Frankfurt, London, etc.

[@Balotovi]

​@@independentthought3390 Yeah Frankfurt is definitely an exception because contrary to the other four cities it isn't financial and cultural centre in one but just a financial one. Through that Frankfurt has made skyscrapers and their "business look" an integral part of the city identity which most people accept as that.

[@nonchip]

fun fact the weirdly "bent" looking skyscraper in london you commented on actually sometimes sets things on fire because they accidentally built the glass facade in just the right shape to act as a giant solar cooker :P

[@EgAlamente]

Wtf for Real ? 😮😂😂😂

[@judithrowe8065]

As well as wanting to keep the beauty of historic cities, there was a long tradition of not overshadowing churches and cathedrals, often left as the tallest buildings on a city skyline.

[@gregor2436]

It is not necessarily a tradition - but sometimes a law.

[@kevonvideo]

In the city of Utrecht, NL buildings still aren't allowed to reach higher than Dom tower (highest church tower in NL). Because of this the redeveloped station area is nicknamed table mountain by critics, because it has a 'skyline' that is flat: all new buildings have approximately the same height: just below Dom tower. None of them in skyscraper territory.

[@IlikeTrainsguy100]

That's still kind of a thing. The reason the location of Skyscrapers in London looks so weird and clustered is because they can't block the view of St. Paul's Cathedral from any designated 'sight line' in the city. And there are a lot of them.

[@-sunrise-parabellum-]

In Belgium, there was this big protest movement after city planners wanted to build skyscrapers in Brussels to house several international institutions. Although some of these skyscrapers were built successfully, the protest movement effectively halted any further plans to build them. As a result, a lot of cities enacted laws limiting the height of new buildings to medium height at best. People here hate skyscrapers

[@baron6148]

The problem was the reason they were building them I think

[@W0Ndr3y]

In Prague (and I bet in other historic cities) you can't even put roof cover of your choosing on a building you own to preserve the look of the town from above.

[@tilmanarchivar8945]

Also in nearly every german town / village.... we are maybe a bit extrem.

[@withoutshadowww]

@@tilmanarchivar8945 But apparently not in Cologne or Berlin 😅

[@florian6437]

De même en France, toutes les communes (villes comme villages) sont couvertes par des règlements d’urbanisme avec diverses règles sur ce qu’il est autorisé ou non de faire (matériaux / architecture / couleurs / formes…) lors d’une nouvelle construction ou d’une rénovation, afin de conserver le cachet des commune et garder une homogénéité de l’architecture. Ça évite d’avoir entre 2 bâtiments historiques un bâtiment hyper contemporain (et inversement).

[@toruvalejo6152]

@@tilmanarchivar8945 Sometimes people must be protected from themselves...

​@@florian6437le message est écrit en anglais, il serait mieux d'y répondre en anglais pour inclure un maximum de personne.

[@kortanioslastofhisname]

There are now actually academic studies regarding blandness of modernist architecture and how the human brain reacts to it. One recent study that employed computational neuroscience for example found that as opposed to the stress-reducing effect of nature and a lot of classical human-scale architecture, the oversized bland surfaces and lack of fine details of purely modernist cityscapes produced mental stress. If you want to read the study it's "What Happens in Your Brain When You Walk Down the Street? Implications of Architectural Proportions, Biophilia, and Fractal Geometry for Urban Science." Urban Sci.2022,6,3.

[@miridroge6043]

I never knew there was a reason, but I definetly feel uncomfortable (and bored) looking at modern architecture; as well as modern house decoration

[@Danceofmasks]

It's not just about big buildings, it's about the sheer volume of people that use those buildings. Skyscrapers come with ungodly amounts of traffic, and traffic causes everything from air pollution to noise pollution. Some cities in Europe are very clean and quiet, and if you're there for a significant period of time, you might find that you're less crazy as a result.

[@MrToradragon]

On the other hand it should be quite easy to incorporate trams and metro into skyscraper projects so traffic volume could be smaller than in USA or maybe even Asia.

[@Danceofmasks]

@@MrToradragon You cannot adequately scale up a solution in 2 dimensions for a problem created in 3 dimensions. If you have a cup of tea, you could conceivably have a saucer big enough to hold all that tea. You make the teacup twice as tall, and a new saucer would have to be gigantic. Skyscrapers don't just double the height of buildings ... your "quite easy" solution is impossible. The only types of viable transit options are 3D in scope, such as direct building to building bridges. I'd stick conveyor belts with various speeds in there too.

[@Radogost1981]

And if you talk residential buildings, do you want to spend 10 minutes every time just to get out of the building? you will spend 5 minutes for the lift alone and another 5 or more to get around it on your way out. Even if you just want a quick snack from a local fast food it becomes a chore. Oh yeah, I almost forgot, and what if there is a fire? Remember people jumping out in 9/11?

[@GilbMLRS]

@@MrToradragon But that requires some sound city planning. And putting a tram into already existing structures is way more difficult than having them already laying on the meadows (or at least planned) when the general construction of the buildings commences. That was the case with pre-planned cities in Eastern Europe and East Germany. They made it from the ground up and it works so well that even with todays traffic that is magnitudes heavier than it was until 1989, the main traffic arteries seem adequate and sometimes even over-dimensioned.

[@marcbuisson2463]

To be extremely fair, in La Défense, there is absolutely no problems with traffic. There are little to no cars allowed.

[@neuralwarp]

US: let's build houses out of pine US: (fires, tornadoes, earthquakes) US: we don't have iconic buildings

[@jenniferharrison8915]

Absolutely right Ryan, if it ain't broke don't fix it! New and Bigger isn't always better! 👍🤗

[@victorcapel2755]

Commie blocks aren't the most pleasing to look at, but outside the former USSR they're suprisingly good to live in. Functional, lots of green space between houses, built to good standards. We have a lot of them in other parts of Europe as well, outside the eastern block. If properly built and maintained, they're actually really good to live in.

[@GilbMLRS]

Americans: "oooh those blocks are so rude so many people are housed there and so ugly" Americans too: *build concrete and glass boxes 6 times the height and 40 times as dense together* "Oh look how beautiful and delicate our buildings are, they are made of glass that has to be continuiusly cleaned because billions of birds mistake it for the skies and are thundering into it each year"

[@MrToradragon]

Commie blocks are just abominations and should be, IMHO, torn down and replaced with more pleasing architecture as they did in Le Plessis-Robinson.

[@faultier1158]

The standard 5 storey apartment building is also very good. Doesn't take long to get outside, fire brigade can actually reach your window, quite easy to handle in terms of traffic.

[@joannajaworska0000]

That's because the whole idea of prefabricated, modern blocks of flats comes not from the USSR, but from France, Germany, UK. Le Corbusier , W. Gropius, Bauhaus and other architects of 20s/30s planned modernism housing as a new urban idea. And the houses from mid war era were really interesting, beautiful stream windows, the"ship-like" lines of the fronts etc. The city of Gdynia in Poland is a good example of the whole new city, built with modernist principles. After the war, the need of housing created these blocks-like buildings. They are horrible in look, but created as the complex. There were schools, shops, doctors' offices and plenty of greenery. The distance between the blocks was also huge (in comparison to the density of present estates). The problem is in the quality of manufacturing, small square footage, the lack of lifts in buildings lower as 5 floors. Still, if modernized and brought to XXI standards, these flats can be pretty comfortable.

[@sk-sm9sh]

Built to good standard? You must be kidding right? There are commie blocks that had been renovated those are okay. If not the renovation - which pretty much redo all the building - all commie blocks have terrible heating systems, terrible piping that can easily clog, terrible water supply with very low pressure, electric wires that can barely sustain a kettle and a washing machine running at same time and the walls thin with no insulation wasting all the heat out. In my hometown nobody wants to live in commie block - renovating is really a pain because you need all residents to get onboard and chip in good amount of money and this can be very challenging task, thus you can find flats in commie block for as little as 50k euros where post ussr times construction flats in same areas would go for 100k+EUR. In contrast pre ww2 buildings sell better than commie blocks - their quality standard are pretty much on par with commie blocks and they need about same amount of restoration but at least they have a character and the walls would typically be much more thick as heating homes pre ww2 was difficult thus insulation of pre ww2 buildings overall is almost always much better compared to commie blocks. Commie blocks were built at the time when cheap supply of gas/oil was made readily available across USSR thus was literally the only point in history where energy saving was not considered when designing buildings because geniuses of commie architecture figured that burning copious amounts of coal, gas, oil will be cheaper than building thick walls.

[@ltrtg13]

Your right. Big Ben isn't a skyscraper. It's a bell inside the Elizabeth Tower.

[@arturobianco848]

Shhhsss even most europeans don't know this. I knew it was the Bell but not the name for the tower (i knew it wasn't big Ben but not whats it was called offically).

[@silviahannak3213]

And nobody works or lives there.cause it is historical!

[@martin-1764]

Technically any building over 70 meters and 20 floors is considered a skyscraper. Regardless the type or use of the building. The reason why the Big Ben isn't, is that it only have 11 floors, despite being 96 meters tall

[@shaneeslick]

G'day Ryan, Yeah I think Europe has not been hit with the "Tear it down for a new Skyscraper" mentality is that there is just so much Beautiful Historic Architecture in their cities that would need to be pulled down to make way.

[@tilmanarchivar8945]

And skyscrapers are not more efficent on useable m2 / m2 ground. Its makes no sense to build skyscrapes. just build dense midrises

[@XgruenaugeX]

We don't need to proof that we got the biggest one ;) We prefer buildings and places with a bit of character and history. With some dark corners to explore, beautiful and charming inner courtyards to discover that you would have never thought were there from the outside, and some spooky old cellars that usually come with a story if you take the time to ask an older neighbour. There is nothing to explore or discover when it comes to Skyscrapers. They're superficially impressive. But that's it. You take one look and that is all you need to know about the building. Clean and boring.

[@andreanecchi5930]

I don't want to have large pieces of metal and glass ruin the view of my country

[@jenniferharrison8915]

Yes, that's why I will never go to Brisbane, Queensland and Hobart, Tasmania is so beautiful! 🤨👍🇦🇺

[@melchiorvonsternberg844]

@@jenniferharrison8915 That's good to hear! I hope you are successful in your search for "your" tiger. This would be great news! And we all need great news in this ugly time...

[@jenniferharrison8915]

@@melchiorvonsternberg844 Thank you! 🤗

[@melchiorvonsternberg844]

@@jenniferharrison8915 You're welcome...

[@silviahannak3213]

Exactly. They are huge and that is high. And dangerous.and ugly and boring. It is like high -higher-America.

[@viis374]

In Germany we actually have a bunch of buildings which are under ‘Denkmalschutz’ (monument protection) those buildings are forbidden to be demolished even if you think some might need it because restoration honestly wouldn’t help anymore or even cost more. That’s also why you might see some buildings that are both modern and old school because the modern part is often an add on to the original structure

[@JohnTaylor-bf6ll]

There are very strict planning regulations in most of Europe. Many buildings are listed, for historical reasons. During any refurbishment, even the colour of paint has to be approved by the authorities, let alone what you can or cannot build, or alter.

[@Vatnikenrager]

I used to love sky scrapers as a kid..when you get older and realise its all just a cad designed quick build glass/concrete/steel construction of a fire hazard that blocks other peoples views and light.. kinda impressive to look at but nothing compared to some of the old cathedrals and stuff.

[@sk-sm9sh]

Not to mention the amount of time it takes to wait for life to get wherever one wants to go and then may overpriced value for the same floor area one could get somewhere else lower where one doesn't need to queue for an elevator. Why would anyone do this to them selves?

[@karlbmiles]

I say if you've seen one cathedral you've seen them all, and every city in Europe has one even though Europeans don't attend church anymore.

[@gecgoodpasi1654]

Skyscraper are considerd interruptive and destructive to the view and thats why they are heavily regulated i would much rather see the sky then some random windows of a office ...

[@gert-janvanderlee5307]

In the Netherlands, we are also limited in high-rise building because of the type of soil on which construction is carried out. We don't have the solid bedrock like New York has, for example, so if we build too high, the buildings will subside.

[@wingedyera]

I didn't think about that yet but that makes sense yes.. buildings in Amsterdam are already sinking it would be dangerous to add sky scrapers to that

[@gert-janvanderlee5307]

@@wingedyera Skyscrapers in Amsterdam can be done but not too high and it needs a lot of preperation of the foundation.

[@ksenss2513]

Quite often there are regulations in cities that forbid to build higher than the Churchspires in older parts of the town. The further out from the center you get, the higher you may build. In Munich there was a big discussion not only about that but also about building highrises relatively far out, because they would have obstructed (ruined) the view of the city from various viewpoints. Scyscrapers thus being possible only in the outskirts.

[@MichaelBurggraf-gm8vl]

It's understandable however because it's not just the skyline of the belfries various churches but - looking to the south - the view of the alpine mountain range too. Admittedly it's a great view particularly when there's Föhn weather, a meteorological situation when several layers of air create the effect of a magnifying glass. Sometimes that can create the illusion that the Alps are rising just a few kilometers south of Munich when it's 60 - 80 kilometers actually.

[@jenniferharrison8915]

😍👏

[@beleaff]

I think it’s a good idea to keep it like that, we don t need skyscrapers

[@nicolettarope6030]

True

[@silviahannak3213]

Yes. We don't need them. Economical Disaster, For Nature, Noise and so many other Reasons. They just look like: Look at Me me me: bigger bigger bigger. Americas Character is screaming this..but LA has Tent Cities ! What the Heck ? I don't think its clever or affordable. Better build for the People, not for the Industries.

[@shizukaakatatsu22]

There are a lot of regulations to visual lines as well. There are specific corridors that allow certain historic buildings like cathedrals, palaces and castles to be seen from other historic viewpoints. These corridors cannot have any buildings there to block that view. A famous example is "the Shard" in London. It is shaped like this because it is bordering one of these corridors.

[@aphextwin5712]

Another common regulation is that within the inner part of the city no buildings higher than certain historic landmarks (often churches) are allowed to be built (applies eg for Munich). Additionally, at least it is my impression, that in cities within substantial valleys (maybe >100 m of valley depth) no buildings are built that would exceed the depth of the valley (which would be seen from very far away).

[@starborneolympus3907]

Yes. I always navigate the city by looking at the towers, and tell everyone, they cannot get lost in the town-centre if they do that.

[@sophiapierro9546]

Yes! In Florence (Italy), there is a law that forbids people from building simething higher than 46 metres, which is the Duomo's height, since you have to be able to see it from everywhere. A lot of people I know, me included, use the huge "Brunelleschi cupola" to find the right direction and this way I never got lost around the city. Like seriously, can anyone imagine a skyscraper near the Colosseum, the Pantheon, Pitti Palace or in Venice or whatever?!

[@seb3813]

One of the main reasons why we don't build that many skyscrapers is also because people tend to find them really ugly and unpleasant to the eye when put side by side with historical monuments So I feel like promoters would rather not build any to bypass the people's angry response

[@tomorrowkiddo]

When I was visiting Switzerland, briefly, there were parts of Lausanne that were just like a postcard, and then I passed a souvenir shop, and there was a postcard, of the view, from the hotel, where I was staying.

[@Brauiz90]

Frankfurt's skyscrapers are mostly bank headquarters... ("Comerzbank" or "Deutsche Bank" are 2 of them) and the houses shown at 5:50 - in eastern Germany (sowiet zone after WW2 or German Democratic Republic) we have some of them untill today - They're here called "Plattenbau" They got the name because it's built with concrete slaps ("Betonplatten") like LEGO...

[@nicoladc89]

The same in Milan, It has more than 20 skyscrapers almost all in a kind of new city born with the gentrification of the city.

[@sk-sm9sh]

Banks need centralized headquarters to enforce tight security policies. Where in normal situation it makes no sense to waste one's time to reach office by elevator in case of strict security requirements this is actually a benefit as it makes much harder for unwanted parties to intrude. It's also a benefit that it takes more effort for your employees to leave your building so they spend less time outside potentially meeting friends and gossiping about what's been happening at their office. Financial instututions always always endup building a skyscrapper-like buildings even in palces where in surroundings there aren't really any skyscrappers - take a look at european central bank for example. Or small regional examples - take a look at Swedbank buildings in Vilnius or in Riga or in about any other place note how despite having all the land necessary to build lower building that would have even more floor space they still opt for builing rather taller one that is simply more expensive for floor space for no appearant reason. That's why pretty much majority of skyscrappers in the world are built in financial districts with predominantly financial institutions. In essence skyscrapers are kind of the modern castles.

[@geekexmachina]

Actually after the great Kanto Earthquake of the 1920s Japan designed underground city spaces as an alternative. And actually there are parts of Tokyo which have underground shopping centres stretching between the Underground metro system. Sapporo City also has an extensive underground shopping area which iss very fortunate ass the winters get very cold.

[@b_period9949]

My city, Antwerp - Belgium, has the first official sky scraper in Europe, called "Boerentoren" ( Farmer's tower). Built in 1930 for the World Exhibition, with only 87.5 meters (287 ft) being the highest office building in Europe at that time. Still stands to this day and is being renovated completely in the next years.

[@moladiver6817]

The first high-rise building of Europe is the Witte Huis in Rotterdam. Constructed in 1898.

[@ffqm]

In Utrecht, the Netherlands we don't build higher than our Dom Tower in the city centre. Further away from the center though, we are getting our first higher building. But then we're still only talking about 130-150m. 😅

[@rebeccadove7621]

Big Ben is the bell, the tower it is in is the Elizabeth Tower attached to the Houses Of Parliament.

[@walkir2662]

Our megaprojects are tunnels through the Alps, between the UK and France or Germany and Denmark, not some towers fighting over who has the highest.

[@maxlothar9719]

We love to name our tall buildings in London after what they look like. So.... We have "The Shard", "The Gherkin" and "The Walkie Talkie" to name a few.

[@maxlothar9719]

The Shard: www.the-shard.com/ The Gherkin: thegherkin.com/ The Walkie Talkie: 20fenchurchstreet.london/

[@B-A-L]

The Walkie Talkie always looks like a slab of butter stood on it's end and slowly melting! Kind of ironic when it actually melts cars paint!

[@speleokeir]

Personally I've never seen a gherkin that shape. 'The Dildo' would be far more appropriate.😁

[@MrDion023]

Not gonna lie , In Haarlem Netherlands they are taking down lots of buildings to put up fresh buildings to live in , but the new building all look awefully bland . Walking through the 100's of years old city center never gets old , but the new buildings lasted about 1 years before people were fed up with the styling 😅

[@susannepalm9740]

Skyscrapers are big boxes without heart and soul. Real buildings with history has a heart and a soul! The feeling to live in an older building or visit an older building is special. In Sweden we have 12 sky scrapers. That is twelve to many..

[@tilmanarchivar8945]

As a urbanist, who is heavily involved in politics urban planing: Skyscrapers are inefficent. Enclosed construction of blocks and midrises are more efficent on useable m2 per m2 ground (for germans: WGFZ) and also much more energyefficent. Skyscrapers have only one issue they solve: show that you are rich and you give a shit about everything. If you look how much useable space, residents per km2 there are you recognize that oldtowns are far better then modern skylines. And more beauty and walkable

[@sk-sm9sh]

There is one more problem that Skyscrappers solve that isn't talked much about: enabling more tight security control. If you look around in Europe most skyscrapper-like buildings are banking institutions. And we're not necessarily talking here some mad rich banking institutions. Even more humble banks tend to build rather more upward buildings. What these kind of institutions typically have in common is that they have single entry doors with tight security gates. If you build more flat building with single entry people who work on north end of the building will hate you that they can only enter their office through south end whilst their commute comes from north they'll think the building design is stupid - however weirdly they won't think this if instead of walking long coridor halls instead they're waiting for elevator to come.

[@tilmanarchivar8945]

@@sk-sm9sh true

[@Kollum]

I see a ton of comments about the visual aspect of why Europeans avoid skyscrapers, but there are also tons of technical reason why mid rise are better. Paris, with 4 to 8 stories height buildings, is not the densest town in the world just for the aesthetics ! Here is why : - volume efficiency : building higher than 6 stories "require" an elevator. Add a few layers and people will not want to use the building if it doesn't offer a second one with emergency power supply as backup.You will also need water pumps and storage, leading to "service floors" wasting space in the build. The higher you build, the thicker the walls of the lower floors have to be in order to sustain the weight of all the stuff above. And this is also the case for building foundations, witch have to be larger and deeper for the building to be stable, that increase the actual ground area needed with no other buildings. All of this increase the infrastructure and maintainability cost per usable unit of surface. - transportation efficiency : First, about the deeper foundations, they prevent building cheap underground metro systems, unless you build the transit beforehand with planed T.O.D. And on another hand, above a level of density, you get into bottlenecks for people and goods transportation. Because transport can't grow on the vertical so well : stress constraints prevent to stack dozens of transport lanes on top of each other, such a stack would crumble, or need support so thick it prevents the use of the space bellow, ie useless waste of infrastructure compared to building at ground level. Thus higher rise needs more horizontal space for transport around them. And there is a density where it becomes more flexible and efficient to have many small exchange points than a single big one.

[@kaalesrex2933]

Thank you . was looking for this comment (or to make this comment) after a certain hight skyscrapers are a prestige project because the density of people living in one place will need more space for the infrastructure that suplies the amenities (think that's the right enlish word) than the total space and energy that would have been needed if there were as you say many small exchange points

[@freyakatze3042]

I think the ground those cities were build in also plays a role. Berlin for example was pretty much build into a swamp and has pretty soft soil unable to support really heavy buildings. There is a German City where the some of the heavier buildings have started sinking into the ground because of this. But I can't remember its name.

[@karlbmiles]

In China they can have 20-story buildings without elevators. Since the party assigns the apartments, you want to be in good favor to get one on the first few floors. A little trivia, "4" is unlucky in Chinese culture, and "13" is unlucky in Western culture, so there are buildings that don't have a 4th or a 13th floor.

[@FuFightersStudio]

Fun fact about that weird scyscaper in London you looked at - its shape actually created a lens effect which was melting cars parking nearby :D They fixed the issue tho. Regarding the soviet construction style - this is due to the massive attempt to make everything look as plain and bland as possible in the name of uniformity - i hate Soviet era constructions they are fugly.

[@victorcapel2755]

What are you on about? The "sameness" of commie blocks is due to economics of scale, not about some grand plan to erase individuality. That still holds true today, 99% of construction is prefab, nothing is unique in any way. Prestige projects are unique, the rest of us lives in the same boxes, built by the cheapest, most mass produced prefab elements money can buy. Theres no difference if it's a single family cheap prefab box or a multi unit prefab box. Just because they slap another colour of paint on today doesn't make it different. I mean, just look at suburbia in the US. Litterally 1000s of identical single family units side by side, built in the outbacks. Are you suggesting that US developers in one of the most capitalist focused countries on earth are in on the grand commie plan to erase the individual via architecture? Hard sell mate...

[@silviahannak3213]

Melting Cars? What the hell? No ! No thanks No !

[@FuFightersStudio]

@@silviahannak3213 Type Walkie Talkie Melting Cars if you want to see the destruction :D

[@victorcapel2755]

@@silviahannak3213 Rather burn the paint job and melt plastic details like dashboard, steeringwheel and so on. Still bad, but not quite as powerful as to melt cars.

[@Jorgerally35]

There is also anoher reason that no one mentions: Cities in Europe have small streets with 1 or 2 lanes per each way. If you build a skyscraper there, and you expect thousands of people driving to that building for work, that could lead in a tremendous traffic jam. So they are only build in huge avenues, but we don't have as many as US or Asia

[@pfalzgraf7527]

New times, new aspects: With remote work becoming more and more a thing, the need for office- as well as living space next to or in the city center is decreasing. So, with digitalization, the need for skyscrapers may become less than this video predicts. Because: building high houses IS expensive (digging down is even more expensive, btw). So, skyscrapers are only built when it is economically sensibel. And with remote work, this may not be the case.

[@sk-sm9sh]

IMHO offices will stay. Not everybody loves to sleep and work in the same room and not everybody may afford to have dedicated office room at their home. It's just that you don't have to centralize office space in city center. Why not have many smaller office buildings that would be 15-30min away from your home instead? I see this trend slowly picking up with more and more small workspaces opening up further down from city centers.

[@Tiogar60]

Remote work will not catch on imo. It's simply too depressing to do long term

[@pfalzgraf7527]

@@sk-sm9sh Very possible - and it would still decrease the need of skyscrapers in city centers. I don't think offices will vanish completely, either. But not all employees will be at the same office building at the same time. Office work will become less centralized in the future. And probably much of the hands-on stuff, as well.

[@pfalzgraf7527]

@@Tiogar60 My ten cents are on a mix. There are people who do like it, some don't. Some days working at home makes sense, some days it is better to meet with some colleagues personally. I don't think offices will vanish completely. But they will not need to be as big animore, because not everyone is there all the time.

[@rolandcassar75]

Under construction for like a thousand years ? Weeeell, nearly. The Sagrada Familia was started in 1882 and is supposed to be completed in 2026. It took so long because it is only funded by private donations (that was the idea from the start). Notre Dame in Paris was started in 1163 and finished in 1345, that's 182 years, and some took much longer. I think York Cathedral took something like 250 years. So what's 144 years !

[@ondraondra6731]

St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague ... started 1344, finished 1929, so more than 500 years :))

[@rolandcassar75]

@@ondraondra6731 I don't know about Saint Vitus, but it is generally difficult to say when cathedrals are finished because they really never are. They are begun, then stopped because funds run out, then work starts again, then things burn and are reconstructed, then the building is enlarged, things are added on, things are taken away, wars happen, stuff is destroyed than rebuilt etc. In Prague, I think, the thing was finished in Neo-Gothic not too removed from the original plans so you could actually say it really was finished in 1929.

[@icebox1954]

It's so crazy to think several generations were born and lived while these buildings were slowly being made. It's easy to take for granted when the building is already finished but many historic buildings were not a doable in the span of a single human life.

[@OneTrueScotsman]

I prefer this video to the other video with a similar title, that appears to have been created by a guy who prefers Skyscrapers to European classic architecture. I love the uniqueness and beauty of European towns and cities. Some skyscrapers look cool and awe inspiring even, but a city with nothing but skyscrapers, looks not so nice, imo.

[@MDMARaver]

Ryan, you should do a video about the Cologne Kathedral. You will be impressed about its history.

[@moonjoke]

In Paris, there's the Montparnasse tower who literally advertise itself as "the most beautiful view of Paris" because it's the only place you don't see the Montparnasse tower.

[@turtlesandmoreturtles4140]

The building described as 'some kind of...' in London is known for having the glass of its windows focussing all sunlight hitting them into one place before it was reshaped, which damaged things like cars on the street it hit.

[@nellitheretrogamer8666]

I've seen this skyscraper video before and that point about floor space was something that I found interesting. When I think about places that have lots of skyscrapers, places like Singapore and Hong Kong come to mind. In both cases, they have had a very small land area to work with; then the only way to fit more people is to build upwards. Just out of interest, I checked what the size of Singapore actually is. It is 733.1 km2 (283.1 sq mi). I noticed that the population there is 5.6 million, which is only a bit higher than here in Finland (about 5.5 million). Our area is 338,455 km2 (130,678 sq mi). Like... wow. I can't imagine what it would be like to live in a place where people are packed so tightly.

[@RaraAviss]

People get realy mad when a modern building gets build between and old ones because it ruins landscape. A lot of cities has an old part and a new part. Vilnius in Lithuania is a perfect example

[@LeoGuda]

5:55 This was a financially accessible housing solution. A person got a home without going into debt for his entire productive life.

[@M4ndr01d]

Londoner "There's just big Ben" the lack of awareness...it burns

[@Dan-kb2oz]

Big Ben is the name of 1 bell for the clock. It's the largest bell. The tower is called Elizabeth Tower. Will this never end.

[@znail4675]

It's often called the Tower of Big Ben, which is essentially correct as it's the Tower where Big Ben is in, even if it's not the official name of the Tower.

[@Wolfspaule]

Nobody visits cities for Skyscrapers, but for old beautiful buildings.

[@UlliStein]

Chicago, New York, Singapore, Dubai, San Francisco and many more cities have their tourists because of the beautiful skylines. I am one of them.

[@tenkohan]

@@UlliStein And I'm not one of them. I agree Wolfspaule

[@UlliStein]

@@tenkohan Yes that's OK, but many tourists don't. However, the sentence "Nobody visits cities for skyscrapers" is definitely NOT true. I know so many people who are "nobody", and there are so big Facebook groups sharing tips and tricks about visiting cities like New York and Chicago. They all are "nobody".

[@thecommenternobodycaresabout]

Here in Greece, in order to build a structure, *anywhere*, you need to go through a group of Archaiologists that will come and inspect the ground you are going to build on, just in case there are any artifacts there. I know of many stories where someone was trying to build a house and the inspectors went "Nope. Not there. You can either select a new location in a completely different area or you can wait until our work is done. How much you have to wait? Well, we don't know. It can take a few months or even years depending on what we find, and other conditions, like weather, etc.".

[@Stolens87]

After WW2 we had a lot of space for new buildings in Germany but somehow decided to not build skyscrapers. I am really happy that our ancestors decided against them, since the high population density is horrible for traffic issues.

[@MichaelBurggraf-gm8vl]

If our planning for public transport would be better, traffic wouldn't be a problem. Instead we continue dedicating more and more area to housing causing more sealing of area which in turn is causing more flooding. Apart from the damage caused by destroying farm land and ecological reservoirs that development in combination with glaciers in the Alps disappearing could become a major ecological and economic headache in a few decades just because of the extremes of flooding and draught increasing.

[@skeki]

In Croatia, the tallest building is the cathedral in Zagreb

[@CriticalityIncident]

6:01 That's Moscow State University. A very impressive building indeed.

[@mah1ro267]

The major reason for this aside from historic preservations are guidelines fpr city planning. Because a whole city of skyscrapers feels overwhelming and depressing and has a negative impact on the human psyche in general. So the main rule basically is: if a building is high, it has to be thin. If a building is wide, it can't be too high. So that there is still a lot of open space.

[@chatongarou7665]

there's also the fact that in most European countries, the population doesn't grows anymore and even decrease gradually (idk if it's also the case in north america), so the need for such buildings isn't as big as it could be. The population density of cities is still growing of course since more and more peoples are leaving the countryside but this density is bound to decrease with time in all developed country as we can observe that the more advanced a country is (in the medical and economic areas mainly), the less children peoples have. this is also something that makes the need for residential skyscrapers low.

[@drakulkacz6489]

For example historical centre of Prague is written in UNESCO for his unique mix of old buildings and architecture styles. And there is problem with skyline going hand in hand with that. So there is a part - new quater - where are some scyscapers built in Pankrác, but not in the city centre. When you put more people in a square kilometer, you have to place there also the parking lots, schools and other services. So it makes just more stress and problems.

[@MrToradragon]

To be frank with current state of real estate market in Prague I would prefer construction of sky scrapers to UNESCO membership. Frankly 18 average yearly salaries for flat is extremely high compared even to western Europe (in Netherlands this should be roughly around 10 salaries per housing), not to mention most of the USA.

[@drakulkacz6489]

@@MrToradragon Yes. But not have to be everything in Prague. It's time to spread the living and bussines to other cities. 🙂

[@evelynwilson1566]

We DO have high rise flat (apartment) buildings. They're not usually in city centres though - at least not in Scotland. They were built as part of the urban regeneration of cities in the sixties and seventies.Maybe you wouldn't call them skyscrapers as they are usually about twenty storeys.

[@andrewmcewan8081]

building down is very popular in expensive residential areas of london some places have 5 basement levels

[@dutchman7623]

To preserve the looks of our beautiful cities, to let important buildings like cathedrals, town halls, bell towers, continue to dominate the skyline. And when not in city center, to go as high as true skyscrapers is not economical. It stops a a certain height, above it the square meter price rises because of facilities like water pressure, elevator safety, emergency evacuation space etc. And 'having the biggest' counts less in Europe, having 'the most functional' is more important.

[@JustForFun2801]

Skyscrapers are normally built right in city centers in order to make the best use of the expensive space. However, almost every major European city has strong regulations for new buildings. It is almost always stipulated that a new building must fit the cityscape, which excludes skyscrapers. Also, you should consider the size. Many major European cities would not be perceived as particularly large in the US or Asia and would probably not have skyscrapers either.

[@nickandersson4165]

This video is old. There are currently 260+ completed skyscrapers within Europe's borders and 360+ if you add the Asian side of Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Turkey. The biggest skylines are Moscow, Istanbul, London, Paris, Frankfurt, Izmir, Warsaw, Manchester, Rotterdam and Milan. And more and more cities are starting to build skyscrapers, such as Birmingham, Vienna, Belgrade, Bratislava, Hamburg, Berlin, Gothenburg, The Hague etc.

[@perperald21]

The tallest building in Norway is a hotel in Oslo, 40 floors, and when a development wanted to make a cluster of buildings 50-60 floors 20 years ago, the protests from people in Oslo led to the building permits were revised, and the buildings got cut off at around 20 floors, which actually doubled the building cost of each square foot

[@marieparker3822]

If everyone works at home, there is no need for office space. Living in a skyscraper drives people mad.

[@MarcHumer]

To answer your question, why not build an earth core scratcher - its simply to warm. About 1 degree for every 30 feet; imagine living in the 50th floor beneath the ground ... energy consumption to keep the place livable would blow the roof - literally.

[@raistormrs]

it's a bit more complicated due to all the regulations, like in my area, there is the hurdle to overcome that buildings are not allowed to be taller than the church... which means the church has to be involved every time high rise is developed around here. 😅

[@Schockmetamorphose]

The Soviet post-war-buildings also known as "commieblocks" were not intended for long-term use. They were designed to be able to house a lot of people very fast to stop homelessness. It was planned for those people to later be rehoused to more permanent houses.

[@RudeAndObscene]

Ironic that commieblocks are better than most places to live in with their huge green spaces, great public transport and pedestrian access

[@Wolfspaule]

4:42 more people should see how Germany looked like after war, to understand our todays view on wars.

[@wensdyy6466]

In Czechia we value character of city landscape (basicly every bigger city here has protected historic part) and if you would bulid a scyscraper (or in some cities even choose a roof that is not read or windows that are not visually similar to the original ones) the sity would most probably loose the statut of historic monument. Also the fact that the geology of most of our country is succeptable to landslides because cities ar on top of flysch or similar subsoil (that makes buliding scyscrapers either imposible or extremly expensive and with the large amount of land avalible it is not financialy sane). There is supposed to be one bulid in Ostrava but there are problems-it does not fit to the landscape (a city with mining industry monuments on every step does not really fit well with thus modern buliding that will tower over the city) and the presence of neogene clay already lead to the change in design (the toer was supposed to split in the middle and continue as two towers=on this subsoil this would be unstable so now plans are for single tower...) also personally I really don´t think buliding scyscraper over old several hundred years worth of mines undearneath is smart idea but plans are this to be finised in 2027 (but they also originally planed to start buliding in 2022 and till now they did not start)

[@mgaugy]

Another cultural factor is the church. For example, in Ireland, it was illegal for anything to be built "higher than the church." So the tallest building until very recently, was only a couple metres shorter than the top of St. Patrick's cathedral in Dublin.

[@somosdeamstrad]

There is a town in Spain which went from a fisher's town at the end of the 60s to a place full of skycrapers. The place is called Benidorm. You may find a lot of videos in KZbin about its skyline and transformation. When you have nothing valuable to conserve is easier to go building as crazy and that's the case...

[@lencox2x296]

It's that simple: Skyscrapers are essentially huge phallus symbols. And they keep building them bigger and bigger. People in Europe don't like that and have to power to restrict them.

[@Suirioujin]

Notre-Dames de Paris took 182 years to be build, Sagrada Familia is nothing, and I'm sure there are other constructions that took even more time to be build and are much older

[@k.schmidt2740]

Right now, there is not much demand for more office space due to remote work. So the threat has lessened.

[@HansLandaNaranja]

Here in my city its illegal to build anything higher than the cathedral. And even apartment buildings and houses have to be build to the same height as the surrounding buildings and even if you buy a historical building/house/whatever, you are not allowed to change it.

[@Quent1nB]

At 6:02 I believe that's the Lomonosov Moscow State University, I was there a few years ago and you are right about the "wow" effect.

[@Dalzedur]

Would love to have a skyscraper in the city I live in, or even just more vertical construction in general. Would do wonders for apartment prices, even with specialized floor plans for indoor public functions, such as a greenhousing floor, laundry/gym/indoor sports floor, sauna/bath/swimming pool floor, shopping floors for small stores/restaurants etc.

[@teogabrielsson4717]

This is a little bit like watching a video together with a friend. Thanks Ryan! 🙂

[@satsumamoon]

8:45 I suspect the prime underground space is most cities is already being used .

[@dominik36127]

Actually those old Soviet style block of flats are far less bad than it is generally considered. While indeed they are the same build from prefabricated elements (a necessity after WW2) they can be made to stand out with good paint schemes (unfortunately seldom implemented). What made the Soviet construction unique however was a great attention to the detail and to the quality of living. They would make sure there is a school nearby, shops, medical center, public transportation. And the buildings themselves would be very well spaced out with facilities for children, older residents and A LOT of trees and bushes in between. Compared to the modern districts build after the nineties they are great places to live and the flat prizes continue to be surprisingly high. Most of the bad reputation comes from the late stages of communism and early capitalism when the economic situation meant that the quality of the building was lower and the maintenance was skipped resulting in the bleak, gray picture that is so popular in todays media.

[@GilbMLRS]

Also often people deliberately choose pictures from the construction stage of prefab blocks when depicting this form of housing thus the trees aren't planted yet or pictures from winter when the trees have no leaves. Today these areas look beautiful (especially with well maintained and modernized blocks) because there are large green spaces inbetween and some sort of park or recreational area is usually reachable by foot. The grey and sand yellow appearance is also due to the fact that rationalization was of utmost importance. It was more important to give the people somewhere to live than it to win a beauty contest. But at least in East Germany it was a requirement to be able to fit into already existing building styles and so the WBS-70 was a modular system that could be tweaked to fit into historic towns by providing modules that could be build angled or had a lower grid size thus making possible more detailed architecture. But as you said this wasn't used all too much. In East German cities it is fairly common to some extent in downtowns, but less so in pure residential areas although there often shapes and patterns were painted on the windowless face areas. The public offices at the time of building were more concerned with reaching their goals to get the people into the flats than with making it pretty. There was also a further development of the WBS-70 system that was to be implemented into the 2000s further modularizing the system and make it more appealing. But that never came to fruition because historic events overtook that development. When reading something about this topic one comes to the conclusion that it was a massively positive development at that time with the best goals in mind and some things like the whole infrastructural design and the green spaces between the blocks has aged very well. After all the only point one could bring against it, is a purely aesthetic one and even this one vanishes in light of new residential buildings that are being constructed with large flat to area ratio in mind because they basically look just the same with the exception of a nicer facade. But after all: same rectangular blocks with many many windows.

[@25thbaam43]

Agreed

[@ApolloReloaded]

The real reason why Europe does not need skyscrapers is, that we don't have suburbia sprawl hell consuming all the space around cities. If u do sensible mid sized mix in mixed zoning, u have more then enough space, without creating a concrete hell, and keeping cities livable and sustainable

[@paganoutdoors3193]

There is a large city of sorts under London, not sure if there's a video as a alot is used by army, police etc ,from firing/traing ranges to Olympic size swimming pools, running tracks ,there's alot down there..

[@veraciteabsolue1221]

Tall buildings are costfull/unefficient because the elevators take all the room in lower levels (all lifts lead to the ground floor but all lifts do not lead to the top) and because the elevators cost are rocketing with heighth.

[@stevenvanhulle7242]

0:32 Often made mistake: Big Ben is the bell in the tower, not the tower itself. The tower is called the Elizabeth Tower.

[@bravobob64]

There are many reasons Europeans don't build many skyscrapers: people don't like living in a tall box without opening windows, using air conditioning 24h, that's not healthy. Cities are more interesting from the ground, you can get a view of the town from a near hill or from an historical tower or dome. Skyscrapers are good for office activities but not for families (European point of view). Skyscrapers are not eco-friendly, you need too much energy to run them.

[@Wienerblutable]

I live in Vienna and it’s beautiful n pretty cheap because the city bought 75% of apartments, they keep the price affordable, Moskow is just crazy expensive n a bit dangerous;)

[@MrKnoppersesser]

I would say the skyscrapers appear mostly at financial hubs, because banks also represent their wealth and power through them. I don't really see density as the reason for skyscrapers. For example the center of Paris is like super dens. Denser than most American Citycenters (especially where parking lot requirements destroyed the city fabric, like Houston) The midrise buildings are just at a human scale an make it possible to build lively district's where you still get to know your neighbours and have a good time living.

[@germanbeer7697]

10:58 im not sure if barcelona has an Architecture that needed 1000 years building time but the collogne Cathedral(köllner dom) took about 600 years,started in the 1200's and finished in the 1800's being Now around 800 years old which is pretty close to 1000(please correct me if i got something confused or wrong,i would like to know!)

[@wojciechtabis5913]

3:15 "You're not going to knock it down and put a skyscraper..." That's exactly what happened during WW2. Some of the cities in Europe got nearly entirely knocked down. They got mostly reconstructed based on the documentation that was left.

[@mskatonic7240]

Ironically both London and Paris do have them! London has them in the City financial district and out in the Docklands, while Paris has La Defense on the edge of town.

[@mfcq4987]

The district of La Défense is outside the limits of the City of Paris, it is a district built in the cities of Courbevoie, Puteaux and Nanterre, in the west of Paris, in the perspective of the avenue des Champs-Elysées (which starts from the obelisk of the Place de la Concorde to the Grande Arche de la Défense via the Arc de Triomphe). The skyscrapers are spectacular, but the area itself is not very pleasant, built on a slab with a highway below, it is very mineral, very hot in summer and very cold and windy in winter ...

[@JUMALATION1]

😆 8:53 this made me crack up: "Why make a skyscraper when you can make an Earth core scratcher?" 😂

[@pascalvallinoto6913]

Skyscrapers have been built in Bologna since the Middle Ages, had 180 towers by AD 1200 between 50 and 100 mt, many are still there, all in brick, crooked and wonderful

[@aleferrari227]

Esatto, quelli sono considerati i primi prototipi di grattacieli.

[@marvinmessinger4676]

There was a Plan for building a skyscraper in the old town of vienna. Then UNESCO came and said they'll take away the world culture heritage status from the town so the skyscraper was never built.

[@oldscooljoe6194]

There is a city rule in my city (groningen/ the netherlands) where no new building is allowed to be taller than the martini tower (100 meter)

[@AntonGermanReal]

i hope it stays this way

[@gio87vr]

Building underground is really a bad idea in Europe, for example London has so much history under the street level, if anyone were to dig they could find history old of 2000 years (roman mosaics and similar), meaning that it MUST be preserved, you can't destroy digging down, making impossible the feat.

[@MrToradragon]

And London has problem with clay as well.

[@gio87vr]

@@MrToradragon Soft terrain? I wasn't aware of it.