It was announced yesterday that One57 had topped out, making it (upon completion) the tallest residential building in the city, and thus the Western Hemisphere. Upon hearing the news, The Observer decided to take a rather sweaty stroll up Eight Avenue from NYO HQ to Columbus Circle to see what this record-setting 1,005-foot tower looked like.
The answer? Not much! Read More
It’s been more than a month, so that must mean time for another Michael Kimmelman column.
But the latest from The Times’ architecture critic is also his biggest yet—literally and figuratively. We learned back in March, via Twitter, that Mr. Kimmelman was headed to Colombia, to investigate the much-talked about transformation of the once-and-still-somewhat-drug-addled South American country and the critical role good design had played in the changes of the past two decades. On March 31, after five days in Colombia, Mr. Kimmelman declared, “Winding up eye opening trip to Bogota + Medellin—compels total rethink of familiar stories about both. Great architecture to write about.”
Indeed. On Sunday, atop the Arts section, a 2,500-word opus appeared on the state of design in Medellin and the health of a city as synonymous with Pablo Escobar as public architecture. The result is the most clear declaration of what could best be considered Michael Kimmelman’s Grand Unifying Theory of Architecture, or The Shortcomings of Popular Design Today. One passage in particular seems to sum it all up rather succinctly: Read More
Who needs Paul Goldberger and Michael Kimmelman when you have Batman? The Observer knows where we will be on May 30, when three of our favorite things collide: Chip Kidd, Gotham City and architecture criticism.
Mr. Kidd has created a new Batman Graphic novel for DC Comics called Death By Read More
“This is an interesting part of town, because we’re in a congested, urban, commercial district, full of hustle and bustle,” Sandi Pei said, standing inside the penthouse of the Centurion last Thursday evening. “And yet we wanted to create a sense of calm and ease when you entered the building, make it a refuge.”
Part of the appeal of living of New York is its inherent energy and vibrancy, but all that action can be wearying—especially if you happen to call the middle of Midtown home. It was this tension, between the hustle and bustle outside and the calm within, that inspired Mr. Pei and his father, the Pritzker Prize winner I.M. Pei as they designed the Centurion, right in the middle of Manhattan at 33 West 56th Street. One need only step into the quiet, nearly romantically lit lobby to feel the city melt away. (This is no PR b.s.: this is truly one of the nicest, most embracing lobbies The Observer has ever set foot in, like warm blanket of marble and mood lighting.)
The building has seen respectable sales, since it came on the market in 2009, but 13 of the 39 units remain available, including the three penthouses. To help push sales along, and demonstrate the true potential of the spaces, which currently sit bare, the developer contracted Sandi Pei’s firm, Pei Partnership, to design two sets of interiors for the penthouses, which range in price from $12.3 million to $14.5 million. All three can be had for $39 million, to create a zen-like triplex spanning some 9,098 square feet. Read More
If Bedford Avenue is the main street of modern day Williamsburg, North Sixth Street is the hipster haven’s Broadway. Home to the first proper grocery store (Tops), concert venue (Northsix), swap meet (Artists and Fleas) and grotesque theme restaurant (Sea), North Sixth Street has long been the grand stage of Williamsburg.
Now performing on North Sixth Street (even if Northsix is long gone, replaced by a Manhattan concert conglomerate) is the Original Music Workshop.
Conceived by Kevin Dolan, a former tax attorney who also happens to be an organ virtuoso, the Original Music Workshop seeks to provide a venue bridging new and old Williamsburg, sustaining music of all types for all ages. As the rest of the neighborhood continues its inexorable gentrification, Mr. Dolan hopes to preserve a tiny corner of Williamsburg cultural past, as well as one of its historic industrial buildings.
“It’s amazing you can knock down anything and build whatever you want,” Mr. Dolan said in an interview. “I’m hopeful that at least the south side of this block will still maintain its feel into the future.” Read More
There are two great thrones in American architectural criticism, that of The New Yorker and The New York Times. It was at these two journalistic institutions that the practice was born, at the hands of its king and queen: Lewis Mumford, that great champion of public works and technics, and Ada Louise Huxtable, still the dean of the design press.
Paul Goldberger has been in the fortunate, indeed unique, position of wearing both crowns. After graduating from Yale, he would find himself at The Times in 1973, a young buck roaming the city he loved, engaged to write just about whatever he thought of the buildings and street life therein. He was, quite literally, heir to Ms. Huxtable, who had not yet been pushed out of the paper for her obstreperous ways, and the two of them shared the job of architecture critic for nearly a decade. Two years after she left in 1982, Mr. Goldberger won the Pulitzer for his efforts.
Thirteen years later, in 1997, he would himself depart one side of Times Square for the other, joining The New Yorker, restoring the Sky Line column begun by Mumford half a century earlier at the behest of Tina Brown. “When I went there, I thought it was as perfect a life as you could have,” Mr. Goldberger told The Observer in an interview Sunday evening, “to spend half your career at The Times, half at The New Yorker.”
But like so many landmarks, from the Parthenon to Penn Station, few endure. Starting today, Mr. Goldberger will board the notorious Condé Nast elevator, but instead of getting off on the 20th floor, he will report to work two floors up, where Graydon Carter has finally poached Mr. Goldberger for Vanity Fair. Read More
Michael Kimmelman is not a very good architecture critic, at least that is what some of his critics would have you believe. As invigorating as his first few columns championing urbanism and public design were, the whole thrust has devolved into a sort of schtick, whereby every article is about the greatness of cities, and barely about architecture.
Michael Kimmelman knows this. Read More
Over the past two decades, SHoP Architects has succeeded through unconventional means. The downtown firm has invested in its own projects to ensure creative control, and not a little profit. It has partnered with manufacturers to create cutting-edge materials for its buildings. It has designed some of the more striking projects in the city, from the Porter House in the Meatpacking District to the East River Esplanade stretching from the Battery to the Upper East Side.
Now, looking to expand its practice beyond unconventional buildings into unconventional cities, SHoP has added a new partner to the firm, professor skyscraper Vishaan Chakrabarti. Chair of Columbia’s real estate development program, the Center for Urban Real Estate, Mr. Chakrabarti has helped transform the way many New Yorkers think about their city and others, and now he wants to get back in on the act of building them.
“SHoP reinvented the practice of architecture, and with my coming here, we’re going to reinvent urbanism,” Mr. Chakrabarti said in an interview this morning. “It’s about how a building meets the city, how it meets the grid, the transit system, public space, basically how a building meets the world.” Read More
The innovation offered by a new tech campus on Roosevelt Island is not limited to New York’s technology sector but the design one, as well. Almost every bid had soaring renderings and flashy flythroughs, most notably the winning entry from Cornell. Now the upstate university has announced six of the world’s top firms, including a few local favorites, are in the running to design the new tech campus. Read More
While working on yesterday’s story about Christian de Portzamparc’s decade-long struggle to get his tower at 400 Park Avenue South built, we stumbled upon another striking New York project by the Pritzker Prize-winning Frenchman that never was. For two years starting in 2004, Mr. de Portzamparc labored on a new home for the New York City Opera, to be built on a site that belonged to the American Red Cross, before the dream was shattered like the climax of an opera. Read More
