Archinect - News

Anish Kapoor completes 'mini-Bean' at Herzog & de Meuron's 56 Leonard

2023-02-06T13:51:00-05:00

After years of delays, New York City finally has a shiny silver bean of its own. A new sculpture by Anish Kapoor—modeled after his famous Cloud Gate, known as the Bean, in Chicago—was officially unveiled this week. [...] Despite its resemblance to Cloud Gate, is different in several key ways, reported Tribeca Citizen in 2018. For example, while Chicago’s Bean is bolted securely to the ground, Manhattan’s mini-Bean is more free-flowing, able to move and shift depending on the weather.

The $8 million freestanding sculpture has been teased since 2008 when renderings for Herzog & de Meuron’s domineering 56 Leonard Street tower were first revealed to the public. It has a less-expensive twin at the MFA Houston and will get an official name later in the coming months, according to Hyperallergic.

“[It’s] small change for these people,” Kapoor (who purchased a condo in the building in 2016) said, speaking of developer Alexico Group’s private financing. “They should be giving something back already, and more, honestly.”

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Herzog & de Meuron's 56 Leonard is finally getting its Anish Kapoor sculpture installed

2019-11-06T14:29:00-05:00

Alexico Group, the development firm behind Tribeca’s 60-storey “Jenga Tower”, a Herzog & de Meuron-designed residential high-rise at 56 Leonard Street, announced that it will start installing a public sculpture by Anish Kapoor commissioned specifically for the building in the second week of November.

Kapoor's shiny 56 Leonard bladder — resembling a smaller, squashed version of his Chicago "The Bean" landmark — made quite a splash in early renderings for the Jenga-like Manhattan condo tower in 2008, but overcoming various fabrication obstacles has not been easy and thus pushed back the final completion date of the development's original vision.

"In order to make the Leonard Street sculpture installation more
expeditious, and to save costs, it was decided to build the precision
components such that they could be tightly fit together, with the seams
thereby becoming nearly invisible hair line cracks," the sculpture's fabricators, Performance Structures, Inc, explained in a statement published by Tribeca Citizen.

"Another significant difference between the Leonard Street sculpture and Cloud Gate is the suspension system. [...] The Leonard Street sculpture has a different support mechanism. Instead of a single large support frame, each slice has its individual su...

Watch this time-lapse construction video of Herzog + de Meuron's Jenga-like 56 Leonard in NYC

2017-06-08T12:43:00-04:00

With a series of jutting balconies and abrupt offsets, the Herzog + De Meuron-designed 56 Leonard, described by the architects as "houses stacked in the sky," is one of the more aesthetically adventuresome luxury condo towers to rise in New York City. This time-lapse video, replete with what the developers apparently feel is an inspiring musical soundtrack, shows the construction of the Jenga-like building over a period of a little under two years, from March 2014 to December 2016:

Storage Space in New York Now Costs More Than a Typical American Home

2013-08-27T15:03:00-04:00

It’s a cellar’s market. New Yorkers are spending more than the price of the average American home — on storage units. Tribeca’s 56 Leonard just sold a 200-square-foot unit for $300,000. That’s $1,500 a square foot for a metal cage in the basement of the future luxury skyscraper.

Over at The Atlantic Cities, editor Emily Badger tried to put things in perspective and created this helpful little chart of median home prices in a few U.S. metropolitan areas (find a screenshot of the interactive chart below).

More on 56 Leonard Street in the Archinect News:

Herzog & de Meuron-Designed NYC Tower Hits the Market

2013-02-20T17:23:00-05:00

The long-stalled Tribeca building announced its comeback in October, only a week before resuming construction. Now the Herzog & de Meuron-designed tower is officially on the market. Nine listings have popped up on StreetEasy, ranging in price from a 2BR for $3.625 million to a 4BR penthouse for $24 million.

Herzog & de Meuron's glassy Tribeca tower is, after many years, finally on the market, with prices starting at $3.625 million.

Work to Begin on Herzog & de Meuron's 56 Leonard St. Tower

2012-10-12T11:16:00-04:00

Four years of construction is expected to begin next week on the long delayed 56 Leonard Street, the 830-foot-high residential tower announced four years ago for the southwest corner of Church and Leonard streets. For more than three years, the building's completed foundation has sat barren while the recession-stymied developer, the Alexico Group, sought financing to complete the project.

Herzog & de Meuron skyscraper up for auction on Ebay

2010-03-12T17:12:00-05:00

Well, the 20" model of 56 Leonard St is up for auction. It's actually a very nice looking model, and even breaks apart into individual units. Ebay

Showy Condos by H&deM, Koolhaas Remake NYC Skyline

2008-09-19T12:22:00-04:00

At the edge of TriBeCa, the Swiss superstar architects Herzog & de Meuron stack 145 luxe condo residences like crisscrossing glass-wrapped dominos. Uptown, Rem Koolhaas tilts a tower perilously over its neighbor. These projects, both in construction, cement a gathering trend: the sculpting of a 21st-century Manhattan skyline by high- priced, high-rise condos. Bloomberg | prev. 23 East 22nd | 56 Leonard

More on 56 Leonard

2008-09-15T13:07:00-04:00

A trio of reviews of Herzog & de Meuron's 56 Leonard Street condo project: NYSun. | Triple Mint | NYMag | prev.
from Triple Mint: The long awaited design for 56 Leonard Street in Tribeca by Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron has been revealed. Above you can see the upper floors, where a stack of cantilevered condo lofts will tower over the once charming neighborhood. The 57 story tower, to be completed in 2010, will have 145 apartments, each with a unique layout. It is worth noting that on the same day this project is revealed another major Wall Street bank has gone under - Lehman Brothers - and with it thousands of high paying New York City jobs. This project could be the capstone to an era. One thing is for sure: it is another step in the transformation of Tribeca into Triburbia, where nannies push strollers by day and black towncars idle at night. Manhattan as stage set for wealthy foreigners and tourists.

from Justin Davidson's piece for NYMag: ...Herzog & de Meuron’s 56 Leonard...

56 Leonard by Herzog & de Meuron

2008-09-15T09:57:00-04:00

On the threshold of its fourth decade, Herzog & de Meuron is poised to reinvent another great architectural prototype as construction begins in New York City on the first hi-rise tower of the firm’s career. 56 Leonard Street will be a 57-story residential condominium building at the intersection of Church Street and Leonard Street in the Tribeca Historic District of downtown Manhattan, where it will rise above cobbled streets and historic 19th century neighbors. Curbed

The tower will house 145 residences, each with its own unique floor plan and private outdoor space, in a veritable cascade of individual homes that the architects describe as “houses stacked in the sky,” blending indoors and outdoors seamlessly together.

With its articulated surfaces, dramatic cantilevers, profiled slab edges, profusion of balconies, expanses of glass, and views from downtown Manhattan to as far as the Atlantic Ocean, Herzog & de Meuron’s 56 Leonard Street breaks down the old image of the high-ri...