Up and above

In “‘Life in the Metropolis’ or ‘The Culture of Congestion’”, Rem Koolhaas talks about how a city growing vertically has left the traditional guidelines for urbanism behind. The “Downtown Athletic club”  is a precedent of 21st century mixed use buildings in modern Metropolis like New York  and Chicago. Mixed use buildings have become a part of many metropolitan cities' skylines. These skyscrapers take on multiple functions. To cater the growing population of metropolises and achieve the tallest building ‘fantasies” cities work with developers to provide incentives to build taller denser buildings. 

These incentives are provided, with the developer agreeing to give back the open or green space. In most cases as in "Central park tower" in New York these amenities and green spaces are provided some 30 floors above the street level. The program is rotated 90 degrees up into the air. These spaces are made available only for the rich and wealthy users of the building. These spaces are not accessible to any public just like a setback space on the street would be. This way of getting around the system to make maximum profits destroys the street life of a city. Metropolis skyscrapers steal the street life and elevate to its exclusive clients. Social interactions suddenly became private interactions. You don’t climb 30 floors to eat a hot dog. Do you? This changes and affects the life in a city to a greater extent.

 In this era of exploring the possibility of human life on a planet that’s 80 million miles away, it isn’t surprising that the elevators escalate the street life to 300’ up in the air.