The epilogue to OMA and Herzog and deMeuron's failed collaborative efforts at Astor Place is Gwathmey Siegel's tower, now going up. Pith.org is keeping a photorecord of its construction. New York Magazine says this is part of a larger trend of ‘Famous-Architect-Designed-Condo/Lofts' being built right now in New York (see Meier's work on the Westside as a prime example).
10 Comments
By the way, I've posted two images in the gallery of the building as it now.
Bring on the 1970's post-oil-crisis, sealed, reflective, and climate-controlled office tower design!
Hmm. I think it looks just fine with the orange fence mesh as spandrel.
(note to self: literally leave next building as unfinished construction to achieve greater beauty, a la sagrada familia.)
is it just me, or is this probably the biggest architectural travesty. this building exemplifies everything wrong with postmodernism. including the fact that it made it through landmarks by specifying suburban office park grade reflective glass. the park behind this building is going to be nothing more than a trash strewn wind canyon (has anyone been in astor place on a windy day, ouch). i can't believe that this is what the state of landmarks in new york city has brought us to...half-ass suburban office park crap posing as "architectural sculpture" on one of the most prominent corner sites in manhattan. where is the public outcry against this thing! howard roark where are you now?
crap.
$9 mil penthouse reports curbed + other apt prices in the bldg
That thing is an outright atrocity. Every time I walk by it I feel as if I've been transported to 1970s Dallas.
every time i walk by i wonder how the cooper union architecture students can accept the reality with that 'sculpture' right next to them. haha, i'm risd.
I don't know. Other than the park being behind stuck between the main building and other buildings, I actually kinda like it. It just looks odd being seprated from the surrounding buildings by that park thing.
It's true! I was just visiting, and I had no idea of the importance of astor place or what might have been tried there before, but I was still able to look up at the building and go. "That's odd. Why would they build that here?" Neither dead nor alive.
zombie-techture
If they didn't put up banners around the site with all the vocabulary we use in a critique, it wouldn't be that odd while I'm drinking my coffee at Starbucks at the opposite corner, and I'll leave it as it is a normal wannabe-spectacle postmodern glass building.
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