December 2020 | Eyesore

Commentary on architectural blunders in monthly serial.

Behold: the proposal for a 160-story, 2418-foot tall “carbon neutral” skyscraper from the French architecture firm Rescubika on New York City’s Roosevelt Island. It incorporates 36 wind turbines, 8,300 shrubs, 1,600 trees, 83,000 square feet of plant walls, and nearly 23,000 square feet of solar panels.

The project is named Mandragore after the mandrake plant, the root of which is said to resemble the form of a male human being. But, let’s face it, this thing looks more like a techno-mutant new incarnation of the Loch Ness monster rising from the toxic depths of the East River — but don’t fret… it’s… environmental ! ! ! Yes, this is the latest method for blowing green smoke up the public’s rear-end: design an outlandishly gigantic real estate project, brand it as “green” — though it requires immense amounts of hydrocarbon energy just to build — and then rake in immense profits from unit sales, and finally hand off the ownership to a condo association and let them deal with all the future problems.

For instance: the problem of not just caring for all those plants, but for the ceilings (and floors) that will be subjected to all the plant-watering that will have to go on to keep the plants alive. Do you have any idea how heavy water is? And how much it will take to water those 8,300 shrubs and 1,600 trees?

Color this project fuhgeddabowdit, as they say in Gotham.

Some additional cultural notes: skyscrapers are now obsolete. Our cities are now contracting, shrinking, and the process has only begun with the ravages of Covid-19. Coming next is a tax revenue famine of epic dimension and a self-reinforcing downward spiral of collapsing city services along with the flight of additional taxpayers with the means to still vamoose. This is one of the last proposals of its kind you will ever see. And like many expressions of things in nature just prior to extinction — e.g. Paraceratherium — they reach their largest and most florid expression just before the end-of-the-line. Thanks to Brandon Haleamau for the nomination!