Roman and Williams has designed a building whose disciplined and reductive design gives it structure and clarity when viewed both from afar and from the street. Imagine reflective wet sidewalks at night giving way to a looming black tower, the rooms above glowing from dim warm lamps. Mies van der Rohe is famous for quoting “God is in the details”, and Roman and Williams devotes its practice to that mantra.  The tower is a careful layout with simple forms and complex textures. The façade spans between two side walls that are made of iron-spot black brick; these define and frame the building’s front elevation. Between these, black muntined windows continue up the thirty-story building. When lit from within, they create the effect of a glowing lantern. These windows relate the new hotel to much of the iconic, pre-war architecture in the neighborhood. The addition of cast-glass bricks and brass fluting at the storefront harkens to pre-war structures and the glamour of iconic New York. Firm principal Stephen Alesch adds, “The building is laid out on a strict grid between two simple flanking walls; vertical steel struts run up the entire face of the building, which are the exoskeleton used to express structure. These are benchmarks of the Miesian approach. However, there is something distinct about our approach. Our version of Neo-Miesian design looks back rather than forward, a concept that we believe is forward thinking. Looking back to move forward, our building pre-dates that identity to an earlier era – Pre-Mies!” Overall, the design projects a strength and discipline that new properties in the area occasionally lack, appealing to both downtown and uptown dynamics. - See more at: romanandwilliams.com