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Climb to the Top By Chris Baldwin T owers always spoke to Richard Keating, with the tallest of man's cloud-nuzzling creations holding particular appeal. Sometimes to the chagrin of his architecture profes- sors. Keating remembers that at the University of California at Berkley, they wanted him to "undoubtedly write my Ph.D. on classical architecture of some sort. And I came back with 'I've been thinking about this, and cities are really the most interesting cultural artifacts of mankind. Throughout history, they are much more important than individual buildings. I really want to write my Architect Richard Keating designed some of the most iconic skyscrapers in Dallas and Houston, helping shape the skylines of Texas' two biggest metropolises. Now he's back with 2811 Maple, set to open in May as the tallest high-rise in Dallas' coveted Uptown neighborhood. It comes from Crescent Real Estate LLC and aims to blur the distinction between sky-high residences for purchase and rent while invoking visions of a Los Angeles tower filled with glittering names. Architect The Tower Whisperer Returns to the Dallas Skyline with 2811 Maple thesis on tall buildings and how they become part of the city.' They were sort of horrified by my decision." So, it should be no surprise that Keating is the architect behind the new 2811 Maple, the tallest residential building in Uptown Dallas, stretching up 31 floors, and the first all-residential high-rise developed by Crescent Real Estate LLC and Keating has built a five- decade career by making tall buildings sing, from the Gas Company Tower in Los Angeles to Trammell Crow Center, Dallas Arts Tower (formerly Chase Tower, known as the keyhole building for its distinctive top) and the renovation/reimagining of Renaissance Center in Dallas, plus Wells Fargo Plaza, El Paso Energy Building, CenterPoint Energy Plaza, and San Felipe Plaza in Houston. Keating has shaped the skylines of some of America's greatest cities. "If all the tallest buildings are identical, you wouldn't have much," he says. 2811 Maple fits Keating's drive to create something distinct that also fits into the fabric of its neighborhood and looks like it belongs. The exterior, with its limestone-clad entry drive, stretches up to windows and long balconies that protrude from the tower, giving a very vertical building movement and accentuating the corner units, leading to something of a canopy top. Joseph Pitchford, Crescent's managing director of development, sees it as something new for Dallas. "Rick's work is infused with a sense of warm modernism that is so appealing in Southern Richard Keating's 92