The funding comes from Vitruvian, a UK-based private equity firm that had also funded Skyscanner (a vertical search giant in the travel industry, now owned by Ctrip) and last June announced the close of a new, €2.4 billion fund, with participation also from previous backer Runa Capital and others.
For these are vertical rectangles, like giant black doors.
Some look like giant vertical eels, beehives and who-knows-what, but all are heartfelt.
A more stylish option is the Radisson SAS, a new 428-room hotel that looks like a giant vertical disc (Franklinstrasse 65; 49-69-770-155-0; www.frankfurt.radissonsas.com).radissonsas.com
When he walked onto the stage, which was framed by giant vertical banners proclaiming "HOPE," his liquid stride and handshake-hugs suggested a man completely at ease.
To many people, these quarter-mile-high structures were at best two cold, giant vertical bars of silver bullion, at worst obscene gestures of capitalist might.
"We wanted to create a tall building that did not look like an office building," Mr. Tsao said, pointing out the way the exterior was conceived as two giant vertical folds, or pleats.
Chains of horrendous corporate-owned "vertical drinking establishments" — giant Identikit bars — threaten the real pubs, and the real pubs are mostly owned by equally horrendous "pubcos," companies invented to dodge laws against brewing monopolies.
It also resembles, fittingly, a capital B. For the "Chatham Series" at MoMA, Mr. Kelly made shaped paintings using a brilliantly obvious method: abutting two ordinary rectangles to form an inverted L. The looming vertical paintings evoke giant rulers, or details of architecture, especially posts and lintels.
MILAN — If you happen to have watched the runways in Paris and Milan six months ago, you might have noticed a spirited case being made for a women's 2013 spring wardrobe of completely sheer dresses, giant vertical cascades of neoprene ruffles and origami-like folds sailing well above midthigh, balanced on soles as thick as a layer cake.
He walked me through the place, already crowded with rows of laminated-top tables and black folding chairs ("right here is where the six-hundred journalists, or whatever, are going to sit"), past giant vertical banners that read "BROOKLYN DEMOCRATIC DEBATE," until he reached what he really wanted to show off an enormous beer fridge that took up the entire northeastern corner of the building.
