Your favorite Texas skyline

[JDawgboyATX]

I have not seen any pictures that really give Austin justice to the size of its skyline so let me post a pic I took last summer.


Keep in mind there is a ton of new construction now with many highrises going up. Ill need to take up updated pics.

[Ray]

Guess.

[Silicon Francisco]

Austin at night is pretty nifty.

[Goothrey]

Originally Posted by JDawgboyATX

I have not seen any pictures that really give Austin justice to the size of its skyline so let me post a pic I took last summer.


Keep in mind there is a ton of new construction now with many highrises going up. Ill need to take up updated pics.

And that's not even all of it.

[Westsidelife]

Houston. Though Dallas is nice as well.

image hosted on flickr

From Flickr, by scalpelorsword

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From Flickr, by scalpelorsword

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From Flickr, by railroad67

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From Flickr, by mrp1001

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From Flickr, by cybertoad

[Dallas star]

Great shots

[skysdalimit]

Nice pics indeed!

I really like all of the skylines of Texas. Probably my favorite is Houston, closely followed by Dallas. I also enjoy Austin's (primarily b/c of Frost Tower), and San Antonio has some cool buildings. Fort Worth also isn't too shabby.

Dallas and Houston's skylines remind me of the typical 1980s/90s skyline, with lots of big, glassy, yet modern, boxes, some with curves. No spires are really present in either city. I love spire towers, but I think the fact that Dallas and Houston lack these makes them unique and special.

[MasonsInquiries]

1)Dallas
2)Houston
3)San Antonio
4)Austin
5)Fort Worth

From 6) on, it's up for grabs...............

[kevin22]

Originally Posted by MasonsInquiries

1)Dallas
2)Houston
3)San Antonio
4)Austin
5)Fort Worth

From 6) on, it's up for grabs...............

agree except
1)houston
2)dallas

[maconahey]

Here's one I took of Dallas earlier this year...

image hosted on flickr

[jonathaninATX]

Hello I'm new to this form, been reading for years and finally have joined I work construction in Austin so when I have the time I'll posted some pixs...

[ikerguelen]

1. Houston
2. Dallas
3. Houston Uptown/Galleria
4. Austin
5. Ft. Worth

[John R]

Fort Worth's skyline will look much better when the Omni Hotel is completed. It will extend the skyline by three blocks southward and will put the city's second tallest building on the south end of downtown where no skyscraper ever existed. There are also two 16 story buildings under construction in downtown right now. The old Tandy Center is getting an extreme makeover, as well.

[UrbanCyclop]

Dallas:

[drmadham]

1) Dallas - love the spacing, fountain place
2) Houston - (Enron) Building is a favorite, density rocks, too boxy tho
3) Austin - Clean, beautiful, and with all those tower U/C its really sexy
4) San Antonio - Needs to grow
5) Forth Worth?

[Geaux Tigers]

Only problem with your #4 pick is that San Antonio doesn't have a skyline.

[KevinFromTexas]

Originally Posted by KevinFromTexas

My top 10:

1--Houston
2--Dallas
3--Austin
4--Fort Worth
5--San Antonio
6--Corpus Christi
7--El Paso
8--Midland
9--Beaumont
10--Waco

I already posted my top 10. But I guess I should elaborate a bit.

1- Houston - For sheer size. I tell everyone, if you're a skyscraper fanatic and you love skylines, you have got to visit Houston. I like Dallas, too, but Houston's number of skylines all around town, clusters of highrises and stand alone buildings is just nuts. Great designs and lots of tall buildings. The most 700+ foot tall buildings in the US outside of New York and Chicago. Houston's downtown skyline truely gives you the feeling of being in a big city. JPMorgan Chase Tower and Wells Fargo Tower are giants. Wells Fargo Plaza is actually the biggest skyscraper in Texas at 992 feet tall and 2.2 million square feet. About 4 times the space of the Frost Bank Tower in Austin.

2 - Dallas - Probably the best lighting designs for any skyline in Texas. Bank of America Plaza, Renaissance Tower, Elm Place, Reunion Tower. Even Fountain Place, which oddly enough has no exterior lighting other than aircraft warning lights. It makes the building that much more mysterious, sort of like Williams Tower in Houston with the beacon, except in this case, less is more. Great skyline in the day, too. Awesome designs. In my opinion Fountain Place is one of the best skyscraper designs in North America. It is such a cool building. My favorite color is blue also, so that makes it even better.

3- Austin - Austin's skyline may not be the tallest, and we may not have the most skyscrapers, though we do have more than Fort Worth and are jockying for 3rd place to beat San Antonio it seems. I've heard people say that even though Austin's skyline is short and relatively small that all the designs are good quality. Everything looks like it belongs together. All the designs fit nicely. Austin's skyline reminds me of a smaller version of Dallas' skyline. It also has some decent lighting designs. One thing I like about Austin's skyline is how it's divided up into 3 sections of use. You have downtown, which officially includes the Capitol, but downtown itself contains commericial office towers, hotels and now more residential towers are going up. Then you have the Capitol Complex, which I as I said is part of downtown officially. North of that you have the UT Campus. Officially that area is outside of the boundry lines of downtown, though it is still part of the same skyline as downtown. Here you have the UT Tower and other university highrises as well as dorms both belonging to UT and privately owned. This is also the densest area of the city, packing in 50,000+ people into 300 acres of land.

4 - Fort Worth - I think Fort Worth is very underrated and sort of the underdog in Texas. Though its skyline is densly packed and quite small, it is in my opinion, one of the best ones in Texas. I love the look of the skyline, great mix of old and new. Again, my favorite color being blue, and green also, most of the big owers there are either blue or green, so it's a hit with me. Also everything fits together very well. Modern glassy skyscrapers rarely look good rubbing elbows with old buildings, but Fort Worth has done a great job of pulling this off. Plus, I would wager that it has one of the most vibrant and inviting downtowns in Texas. It's really a gem in this state. It's also a really unique situation there because the skyline jumps quickly from 300 feet to 500 feet tall. There are only two 300+ foot tall buildings in the skyline, then it quickly jumps to 400 feet then 500 feet. Sort of an odd situation since most other skylines graduate up. This makes the skyline have a clean and organized look. Besides all that, and the modern glassy skyscrapers I mentioned, I absolutely love all the old buildings there big and small. Fort Worth has done a fantastic job of preserving its past. The rest of Texas should take note of it.

5 - San Antonio - My other favorite city in Texas. I was afterall born there. Although San Antonio's skyline leaves much to be desired when you realize the city's size, it is a beautiful city. I think architecturally San Antonio is the gem of Texas. It has so many great old buildings. What it lacks in tall glassy skyscrapers or modern designs, it more than makes up for with its old buildings. I do hope more taller, glassy modern towers are built there of course, and I do want to see the city prosper, but I'm not exactly falling out of love with it. I wish more emphasis was put on downtown instead of outside of downtown and the suburbs, but honestly, San Antonio is already ahead of the rest of Texas when it comes to great architecture. If you like old buildings, San Antonio is definitely a fun place to be. I'm especially envious of the Tower Life Building, arguably the best old skyscraper in Texas, and my favorite old skyscraper in Texas next to the UT Tower in Austin. Also the Tower of the Americas is such a cool place. I visit it everytime I'm there.

6 - Corpus Christi. As a "downtown" Corpus Christi leaves much to be desired. The areas west of the bay in downtown are very slow. I've walked around there for hours not seeing a single soul except for beggers. I had one guy give me a look and request my camera, I gave him a look back, like "yeah right." But, close to the bay the city is stunning. Skyline-wise, Corpus may not have the tallest, or the biggest skyline, but the layout of it is just too cool. Two of my favorite buildings in Texas dominate its skyline, the Shoreline Plaza Towers. These two buildings really anchor the skyline. Even with some of the other buildings being pretty basic, those two make up for it. The shape and layout of the skyline is pleasing to the eye. The whole downtown area is full of eye candy for us architecture and engineering geeks. Nice towers, the harbor bridge, the USS Lexington. It is cool. You also have the bay which is just so nice. I think Corpus Christi has the nicest waterfront of any Texas city.

7 - El Paso. El Paso's skyline is ridculously small when you consider how large the city is. Especially when you add Juarez just over the border, making both metro areas combined just over 2.2 million people. El Paso doesn't have any staggering designs, or tall buildings, (tallest building is just 296 feet tall). Still, there's something about it. El Paso has a certain mystique about it. Architecturally, it does have some nice buildings. During the 20s and 30s the downtown area was much more lively and there are atleast a handful of nice old buildings. The setting of El Paso is perhaps the most spectacular. First of all, it's the highest elevation of any major city in Texas, at 3,700 feet above sea level. It's also the only major city in Texas to have mountains inside it's city limits, or even within view of it's city limits. It resembles a Southwestern city, from Arizona or New Mexico, than it does a Texas city.

8 - Midland. Not exactly the most eye popping designs, but for a city of just barely over 100,000, and 250,000 in the metro. Aside from the topography, geography and climate, Midland resembles more a city somewhere up north in the midwest, perhaps say in Indiana. For such an isolated and relatively small city, it has a decent sized skyline. Check this out, Midland has just over 100,000 people and has two 300 foot buildings, and about five 200 foot buildings. Now look at El Paso 300 miles to the west. It has 600,000 people in the city and no buildings over 300 feet, and only about ten over 200 feet. Midland is actually tied with Fort Worth for the number of 300 foot buildings, with 2. Fort Worth is obviously a taller and bigger skyline, but still, it's surprising for such a small town to have that many when you consider that it's in Texas which is not known for urban small cities. Also because of where it is, people say El Paso is remote, but atleast it has Juarez across the border, Midland and it's smaller neighbor Odessa to the west, are really remote.

9 - Beaumont. Still another small town that leaves much to be desired in its downtown. Quiet, and not very active development-wise. The last time I was there the downtown area was torn up, all the streets were being worked on and I had a hard time getting around, which I suspect they were fixing the streets. The pot holes there were like craters. Beaumont is one of the more run down looking downtowns, though it is apparently making an effort to reverse that. With all that said, the reason I've picked Beaumont is for its potential. It's a coastal city, and it has some great old skyscrapers. Considering how quiet and run down the downtown is today, it's surprising to see such beautiful old buildings. Beaumont to me is a true southern city with it's architectural style.

10 - Waco. Waco is another skyline that isn't ritzy, or even big or tall. And it's not the most active of Texas downtowns, but I see a ton of potential there and the city is making a huge effort to better it. Since my first visit in 1999 I've noticed a lot of improvements. Building restorations, sidewalk improvements, more landscaping with flower beds and trees planted. Not to mention Waco has a fairly decent bus system which is extremely rare for a town of only 100,000 in Texas that stands alone without any influence from a major neighboring metro. In downtown they built a large plaza area across the street from the city hall where buses come and go to pick up riders. Downtown is anything but dead, although it could be better, but the potential is there. I saw one old office building that was restored and had 3 floors added to it and was converted into lofts. That's encouraging. Their 2nd tallest buildilng is currently being completely restored. The former retirement tower will now have retail, office space and residential. There's also another building in downtown that is being converted to residential, that one will have retail. Architecturally Waco has some nice structures. Of course there's the Alico Building, which at the time it was built in 1911 was one of the tallest buildings in Texas. Then there's the historic old Waco Suspension Bridge, built in 1870. This was not only the first suspension bridge in the state, and the first bridge to cross the Brazos, but some say it was the model for the Brooklyn Bridge in New York since it was designed by John Roebling, the same architect who designed the Brooklyn Bridge 13 years later.

And, you really shouldn't save pictures off of Emporis and repost them like this. This is my photo by the way. You can use it for personal use, but if you post it, please credit me as Kevin Lehnhardt. Thanks.

[Silverhawk]

Does anybody have more pictures about Dallas's Skyline

[TexasStar]

Originally Posted by Silverhawk

Does anybody have more pictures about Dallas's Skyline

Absolutely...My pics

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[TexasStar]

Images from Dallas Freeways.com