Towers--click to enlargeIt struck me yesterday that my favorite building in New York has a lot in common with my favorite building in Hong Kong.

I don’t mention it much in this space, but I’m a huge architecture buff. The Bank of China Tower, at left in the image shown here, is one of my all-time favorite modern constructions, despite I.M. Pei’s apparent affront to feng shui. And for the past few months I’ve been extolling the bold virtues of the Hearst Tower to anyone who will listen.

A toast, then, to diagonal support beams.

Bank of China Tower

Hearst Tower

(The title of this post refers to the classic Girder and Panel toy of days past, which I may still have stashed away in my parents’ basement, and which is once again available. I wonder if I’m too old to get one.)