based purely on gut reactions to the exterior...

it looks fugly

hi

I too see Hi, and now I'll never not see it.

I get to go to class next to this building every day, and I don't like it at all, I'll explain more later.

ehhh.....
I would like it if they allowed NYIT final crits here.

omg

I think the pressure to design a masterpiece here was huge. And the site is very prominent. New Yorkers had gotten used to the original building—it was kind of like a piece of furniture you forget about. To replace it is to call attention to it.

So, could anything have really succeeded in this spot?

allied left the footprint the same and the facades are largely mute. i don't think this project is meant to succeed or fail on its exterior expression.

for that reason, so far i like it! the surfaces appear to be nicely detailed and there has been some sensitivity in breaking up the larger mass with cuts and openings.

it's certainly too early to condemn it.

I work about two blocks away from this building and I have the opportunity to see it up-close on a daily basis. As Steve said, the detailing appears very well-done, and the facade does a good job of breaking up the mass of the building. I'd be happier about it if it didn't form a huge letter "H" facing Columbus Circle, though.

I'll be especially interested to see how the building meets the street (still a mess of construction barricades at the moment) and what the interior spaces look like.

it looks like every other boring new york building

Looks more like a building I'd find in Tokyo rather than in New York. Clean, well-detailed white box. No?

The crossbar in the "H" wasn't in the original design. I believe this is the cafe, or the boardroom. At any rate, it was added later in the design process, presumably at the client's behest.

It would be a much stronger building without this crossbar. And it wouldn't seem to spell "hi."

I like the precise quality of the detailing—very crisp. It does feel somewhat foreign to New York city, where every other building is seemingly drab brown, with small prewar windows.

I'm assuming that if a person doesn't like (or isn't familiar) with minimal architecture, they probably won't like this building.

i love the simplicity and strength of the proportions of the original building, and wish so much that the new design would've drawn inspiration from that...

from the photographs alone, the new building lacks visual depth and strength...

The original building was better detailed, and currently there are gaps where the prison-like narrow windows are to be. The building is well detailed for an American one, but then again so is Time Warner Center, Hearst Tower, AFAM, MoMA, Aust. cultural forum and countless other "new" buildings in midtown.

This is just so damn bleh. New Yorkers don't dream anymore, we just don't.

You right. New Yorkers are incredibly cautious and conservative when it comes to architecture.

My take is that New York has a self-image based on some storied past that they're afraid to transform. New Yorkers seem to retreat into a kind of nostalgia for a mythic past (which never really existed anyway) whenever change is presented to them. Paris has the same complex.

But London for some reason is able to embrace real change and build new and fairly radical buildings constantly.

Bleh. . .

remarkably piss poor design. i thought allied works were supposed to be creative not corporate...?

Jump....
That was exactly my sentiment..
You worded it perfectly!

from SDR's link:

from this:



to this:



i'm just a poor caveman, but i like the old one better.