Saturday, September 3, 2016

Tysonia Architecture


"Tysons Corner" sounds like a quaint little village in rural Virginia, but it hasn't been that way since the 1960s. It's a built-up futuristic city which I call "Tysonia." There's an elevated railway and a number of skyscrapers and high-rise apartment buildings, most of them ugly. The building in this sketch is often cited as the ugliest of them all, featuring a large circular hole in the center rimmed by a strip of white concrete, reminding everyone of an enormous toilet. I was at this building for banking on September 2 and was able to do a sketch in their recently rebuilt courtyard. You can see part of the toilet seat archway at left. The fat cylinders in the foreground are plastic seats for people to park themselves on. There is a new restaurant behind the little columns, which I have not tried. In the background is the communications tower on top of Tysons Corner's hill and part of the vast Koons car lot. I must confess, I messed up and messed with the perspective so I could get more architectural detail into the picture. 

Black technical pen on sketchbook page, 5" x 8", September 2, 2016.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I remember that building. Thanks for bringing it back to memory.