The architecture world is a-tizzy over the unveiling of Spanish starchitect Santiago Calatrava's plan for the Chicago Fordham Spire, which, at 2,000 feet would be the tallest building in the wait a minute. You know what? We don't care. We'll let the boys duke it out over whose is biggest. But Unbeige is a decidedly female institution and we want to know the answer to the real question: Is it pretty?

And, disturbing imagery not withstanding, our gut instinct says yeah, we actually kind of like it. It's certainly prettier than the Freedom Tower, which looks suspiciously like a glass piece our mother once bought from Marshall's. The Fordham Tower has been referred to as "a drill bit," "a blade of grass," "a tall, twisting tree," "a stately woman in a flowing, gauzy gown that swirls around her legs," and "a swizzle stick," but we have to say there is something appealing about those curves when compared to the sharp, shorn edges of Chicago's other buildings. Plus, we're positive a nation of humanities professors will be swooning at the way the structure perfectly marries the masculine and the feminine. Listen closely and you can hear the sound of the world's most fulsome interdisciplinary thesis being born right now.

The Desire for Tallest Building Persists [NYT]
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