Unlike most of Pelli’s work in supertowers, his creation of the National Museum of Art in Osaka, Japan is a very different and unique architectural masterpiece done by Pelli. The construction actually began three levels underground, based on strict geometry that is expressed in the form and silhouette of the towers. The museum presents an explosive, amorphous facade, completely free of geometric constraints of any kind. The museum was mainly dedicated to holding contemporary art collections to attract the public and tourists from other countries. The limitations of the area were the main cause of why the museum had to be built underground at the start. The area is crisscrossed by several underground streams, calling for triple-layered concrete walls reaching 3 meters in thickness. This smart architecture allows for protection against earthquakes and general moisture that forms underground.

Like many other wonderful constructions, another supertower architectural masterpiece by Pelli is the Unicredit Tower. Located in Milan, Italy, this tower began construction in 2003 and was completed around 2012. The headquarters of the tower is a complex of three towers. The tower spirals upward, with the asymmetrical main tower being culminated in a sculptural, stainless steel spire. However, like the two smaller towers, the building is clad in reflective glass. The narrow, curved forms of this encloses Piazza Gae Aulenti, a new public space recently introduced to the tower. When you look at the tower from the street level, the tower are in fact clad in stone. And, around the piazza, a ring-shaped canopy connects the podiums of the three towers. Extending the plaza is a public space with several eating places and public shops that attract the public well.

Another wonderful architectural masterpiece that Pelli constructed was the salesforce tower in San Fransisco, California. The elegant building joins 18 other supertowers as the only ones standing 300 meters or taller. In San Fransisco, the building towers above all others in the area, allowing for the tower’s blue glass and integrated sunshades gleam over the city for an amazing sight. The tower’s slim, but slightly inflated form sharply contrasts San Fransisco’s 1980s era skylines. The towers structure was build on the focus of stability and sustainability. Integrated metal sunshades in the tower allow for maximizing lights and views to the outside, while at the same time reducing solar gain. As far as the glass, the tower contains low-emission glass to reduce the building cooling load, making it extremely efficient. The 1.1 billion dollar tower is still being finished to house over 5000 employees, as a boom for employment in a popular city like San Fransisco.

The Sevilla Tower, constructed by Caser Pelli, is a tall, 180 meter building with 37 stories to it. The construction started in 2008 in the south of Cartuja Island. the base of the tower is formed by a raised plinth, with two ribbon-shaped buildings, which is mainly devoted to business centre-like offices. Within the space between the two raised plinths is an elongated north to south square, which are surrounded by public establishments such as restaurants and different types of stores. The roofs of the building are landscaped with vegetation to control the thermal inertia of the building. The facade enclosure is done in this building by modular aluminum-framed glass curtain walls with solar protection consisting of a triple system of vertical and horizontal parasols.

This blog is related to the Van Gough Museum in Amsterdam, which has influenced me in a positive manner. This museum has meaning to me because my mother’s side of the family is from the Netherlands, and they would frequently take me here when I would visit in the summer or over a school break.

This meaning affected me in a way that it showed me both a different type of architecture, which the building has, and a different type of culture within the architecture at a very young age. The encounter was one in that I visited it and explored it slowly, as I also took in the works of art inside the building along with the architecture of the building itself. My thoughts and feelings towards it at the time were astonishment because it was a very new style of architecture to me.