With everyone else tacking on millions to the asks for their apartments, we guess 432 Park Avenue wanted to get in on the action, even if the most soaring of soaring residential towers has yet to break ground. Why should One57 and 15 Central Park West rake in all the cash? Especially when 432 Park Avenue is set to be the tallest residential building in the city at 1,395 feet? Read More
Yayoi Kusama’s snake-like wrapper for a new Meatpacking District condo project tied up New Yorkers attention on Friday when it was first revealed—a collaboration between the Whitney and developers DDG Partners, the nifty netting has yet to be installed. But what is hidden behind one of the biggest pieces of public art to appear downtown in awhile? Some 37 luxury condo units, of course. Read More
New York is not always known for its architecture—it has some great buildings, but just as many unremarkable and out-right terrible ones. One sector where this has not been the case, at least for some time, is public architecture.
Starting first with the Awards for Design Excellence, in recognition of the best public works, and then the Design Excellence Program, which hires a stable of young, creative architects to undertake city projects, the city has built an impressive track record in commissioning smart, egalitarian designs for its buildings. Read More
Durst Fetner is at work on arguably the most dynamic, certainly the least square, apartment building in New York City. Jean-Daniel Noland, chair of Community Board 4’s land-use committee, even cautioned his fellow committee members against overwrought superlatives when they considered the project last night as it entered the first phase of public review.
“We are in a house of worship, so no talk of icons tonight,” he said from behind a long table inside the Actor’s Temple synagogue on West 47th Street. “Only Jehovah can do that.”
Still, his colleagues on the committee could not resist, referring to the building as beautiful, interesting, celebrated, stunning, beautiful, attractive, singular, impressive, beautiful and destination architecture. At the end of the meeting, when a resolution was being drafted to make recommendations to the full board on what conditions it should support the project, James Wallace said, “I think we should go out of our to note the spectacular beauty of this design.” Read More
One of the big surprises to come along since the boom has been Durst Fetner’s new apartment building planned for the end of West 57th Street. The pyramidal structure designed by the Danish wunderkind Bjarke Ingels Group, aka BIG, is the kind of ambitious creation that was supposed to have died during the decadent days of the last decade. (We may actually start to see more of the exquisite as the super-high-end continues to out-perform every other housing sector in the city.)
Within the BIG surprise was hidden a smaller one, revealed in planning documents filed when the project was approved two weeks ago, dubbed Development Site 2. Plans call for a 110-unit apartment building that backs onto the pyramid apartments, though it is unlikely it will be built in that form, if at all. Instead, it is a zoning technicality. Read More
We’ve already declared it the craziest building in Harlem, so how exciting to come into a whole cache of renderings of the new Diller Scofidio + Renfor tower for the Columbia University Medical Center. They particularly reveal the unusual “Study Cascade” that is the core of the building’s design. Read More
This gives a whole new meaning to “in the heights.”
Columbia University Medical Center has just announced that Diller Scofidio + Renfro will be designing a new 14-story medical building on Haven Avenue between 171st and 172nd streets that will be home to high-tech class facilities for all four CUMC colleges as well as the biomedical program within Columbia University’s college of art and science.
The university tapped DS+R, along with Gensler, to create a new landmark for the medical center, one that will be visible from both the George Washington Bridge and Riverside Park. Read More
Last week, The Journal got its hands on a 67-page marketing packet for Harry Macklowe and CIM’s soaring tower at 432 Park Avenue, the former Drake Hotel site where the developers are working on the tallest tower in the entire city, apartment or otherwise.
In their write-up, Journal journalist Eliot Brown and Craig Karmin mentioned that inside the packet “are a collection of striking images of what would be the tallest residential tower in the U.S. at 1,395 feet as well as a number of other interesting factoids about the tower, called 432 Park.”
Those factoids are below, but what obviously whet The Observer‘s appetite most was the promise of “striking images” (we have a thing for those) that were sadly absent from The Journal‘s report. But no more. Read More
That’s what Gregg Pasquarelli, the SHoP principal told us last night, at a party on the pier, part ribbon cutting (even though the thing opened last fall) part book launch (even though that came out three months ago). Really, this is one of the hottest firms in town, so whenever an opportunity presents itself to drink and party, it is taken.
As The Observer was leaving, Mr. Pasquarelli grabbed our arm and pointed out to the FDR, the underside of which glowed a faint purple.
“You’ve got to take your wife out there, I promise she’s going to kiss you,” he said. “It happens to everyone.” Read More
Finally, a reason to go to Yonkers!
And we have entertainer extraordinaire Bruce Ratner to thank for it, too.
Mr. Ratner’s massive, corruption-laced Ridge Hill development will be getting New York state’s first Legoland, according to The Journal. Read More
