ardecila

Looks fantastic! Glad to see the high quality has continued while I've been away.

Thanks! Like I said, my visit to the Library was a spur-of-the-moment thing when my plans for the day in Washington fell though. It's actually kind of a pain in the butt, since you have to apply for an ID card. Then, you have to go to the other building to get to the main reading room - you know, the huge, famous one that was featured in National Treasure 2. Between the ID card, winding my way through the buildings, and waiting for them to find my stuff, it seemed to take forever. But minus the time when I was eating lunch, it was only about 2 1/2 hours. But man, is that place is an awesome resource. I'm even prouder of my country, not only for building such a gorgeous structure, but also for having the foresight to keep so much information safely stored away, but accessible to the public.

Okay... I guess the party in this thread DIDN'T continue without me.... shoot. :haha: So, I was hanging around in Washington DC last week, enjoying the great architecture, the great museums, the great food, the great subway system, and the terrible weather (I think it topped 100 degrees). My original plan was to rent a bike and ride down to Mount Vernon, only 12 miles alongside the Potomac, but in this hot weather, I wasn't about to try it. So, I had some time to kill, and I went and visited the Library of Congress. They had lots of interesting stuff, but I decided to go to the research part and find a book on Grand Central Station. I filed my request, and went out for lunch. I came back, and a beautiful leather-bound book was sitting on my desk, along with an old magazine, that has pictures of the station before it was demolished. The book was actually one of only 5 distributed to the executives of the Northern Pacific Railroad, which built the station back in the 1880s. It had lots of pretty little engravings of the building, along with much more architectural detail than I had ever wished for. I now know not only the tile pattern on the lobby floor, but the quarry where the marble came from and the stoneworkers who installed the floor. My goal is to get Grand Central Station finished up ASAP and released... it was my goal last summer, too, and we see where that went. Luckily, I don't have much work left to do - I did some educated guesswork when I made the model in the first place, and most of it turned out to be correct.

Looks awesome, Jason - all of them! It's nice to see you haven't stopped modeling buildings!

I like the way you've done the mosaic, but the colors are wrong. Part of the strength of the original composition of the building was that the mosaic used complementary colors to the glass and the mullion panels. Using a contrasting color just draws attention to the mosaic unnecessarily. Of course, you've already released and rendered the building, so it's a little too late now.

Ironically, this is almost identical to the Martin Luther King Library in DC, which is the flagship library in the District system (Library of Congress doesn't count). Malcolm X College is another good comparison, wolverine.

Originally posted by: nofunk Originally posted by: GodzillamanNo observation deck? Well that sucks...quote> Apparently, there will be an observation deck, but it will be private. So unless you happen to know someone living in the tower, you're outta luck. By the way, ardecila is right: the new model is the US Bank Center in Milwaukee, Wisc. And unfortunately, that's the last update you'll get on it for the next week! I'll be in Chicago working for the CTA over spring break, and 3ds is installed on my desktop at home. So no modeling for me over break! quote> The technical term is "meditation space". Views like that would definitely send me into a trance..... BTW, check your PM box.

Originally posted by: st louis dudeDetroit dosen't even have ONE nationwide grocery chain operating within city limits.quote> Grocery chains are regional, not national... Chicago doesn't have any national grocery retailers either, but we do have several successful local chains.

Originally posted by: JFman00 For all the people that moan and complain about grids. THIS is what a real city looks like to me. The grid continues far into suburbs, for 50+ miles around the city itself.quote> Well... sort of. The grid goes about 15 miles in all directions from downtown, and then only major streets (every 1/2 mile) continue on into the suburbs. Between the major streets, though, subdivision-style curved streets usually dominate in the suburbs. But there's no doubt that Chicago is a real city. Who was questioning that fact? manticorefan: That would be the Coyote Building at North/Damen/Milwaukee. I think it's one of the coolest buildings in the city, just for being a skyscraper outside of downtown and inland from the lake. You're not the first person to request a BAT. I don't even think you're the second.

This feels like it ought to be 30-40% taller. Don't stretch it, but just add floors. Well, actually, just do what you feel like and I'll be glad to have it either way.

US Bank Tower, Milwaukee's tallest building? I guess I have an advantage over most forumers, living only 90 miles southwest of Milw. Fun fact - from the top of Chicago Spire, once it is completed, US Bank Tower will be visible (factoring in the earth's curvature). People have done calculations to prove it.

Yes, they're quite similar. But City Hall in real life is 4 TIMES bigger than the Bureau. It has mind-blowing scale for a Beaux-Arts building.

Yes, they're quite similar. But City Hall in real life is 4 TIMES bigger than the Bureau. It has mind-blowing scale for a Beaux-Arts building.

This looks amazing! The only tiny little nitpick I have is that the ground-floor windows on the front side don't have little stone ledges beneath them. Historic buildings typically have a stone or terracotta piece there so that the wooden windowframes aren't exposed to rainwater from the sidewalk.