The best architectural review rag Vanity Fair (ha!) has a great piece on starchitect designed condos in Manhattan.
I lol'ed all over myself.
"We’ve grown cynical about the metaphor of transparency, openness, harmony, and light. It’s not like floating in the sky. It’s like living in Pyrex. Like being the ingredients in some glutinous civic fruitcake."
"Inside, they’re a precious design oxymoron, a mixture of Minimalism and old 70s industrial functionalism. There are obtrusive pillars, and there’s hardly anywhere to hang a picture, let alone your hat."
"There are hardly any dining rooms, or even living rooms. New New York style has a “great room.” A place to plug in your laptop, prop up your flat-screen, suck Starbucks, and surf soapy Asian babes. The bedrooms are for solitary fear and chemical unconsciousness. They seem to contain just enough oxygen for a single night’s sleep."
"40 Mercer has big red and blue strips on its windows that I thought were protective shrink-wrap.
“That’s coming off, right?”
“They are a design feature of the artistic conception,” she says without moving her lips, like she’s talking dirty to a tramp. “On different floors, they’re either red or blue.”
“But if I buy one of these apartments I can take them out, right? I don’t have to have a red window in my living room.”
“Well, sir, for the conceptual integrity of the building, you’re not allowed to remove them. You could, though, cover it up.”
“Hold on, I can spend a few million and then black out one of my own windows because some architect thinks primary stripes look cool from the street?”
Condos of the Living Dead
The best architectural review rag Vanity Fair (ha!) has a great piece on starchitect designed condos in Manhattan.
I lol'ed all over myself.
"We’ve grown cynical about the metaphor of transparency, openness, harmony, and light. It’s not like floating in the sky. It’s like living in Pyrex. Like being the ingredients in some glutinous civic fruitcake."
"Inside, they’re a precious design oxymoron, a mixture of Minimalism and old 70s industrial functionalism. There are obtrusive pillars, and there’s hardly anywhere to hang a picture, let alone your hat."
"There are hardly any dining rooms, or even living rooms. New New York style has a “great room.” A place to plug in your laptop, prop up your flat-screen, suck Starbucks, and surf soapy Asian babes. The bedrooms are for solitary fear and chemical unconsciousness. They seem to contain just enough oxygen for a single night’s sleep."
"40 Mercer has big red and blue strips on its windows that I thought were protective shrink-wrap.
“That’s coming off, right?”
“They are a design feature of the artistic conception,” she says without moving her lips, like she’s talking dirty to a tramp. “On different floors, they’re either red or blue.”
“But if I buy one of these apartments I can take them out, right? I don’t have to have a red window in my living room.”
“Well, sir, for the conceptual integrity of the building, you’re not allowed to remove them. You could, though, cover it up.”
“Hold on, I can spend a few million and then black out one of my own windows because some architect thinks primary stripes look cool from the street?”
“It is a unique feature of the building.”
Oh NYC, how I don't miss ye.
Oh I forgot to mention this first came out in 2006. It's what makes the article even more eerie.
i second the lol. Thanks!!
operationally speaking, buildings have "conceptual integrity"?????
Go figure. I thought the very idea of conceptual integrity was a design feature not an operational one. So much for flexible, living buildings..
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