Among this new breed of towers, design elements not directly tied to profit are often downgraded or eliminated as overall costs climb. [...] With today’s mathematically generated super-spires, it’s best to paraphrase Mae West: “Architecture has nothing to do with it.”
[...] much as the new super-tall New York condos may serve that same general purpose, these are no works of art. If, as Goethe posited, architecture is frozen music, then these buildings are vertical money.
— The New York Review of Books
Related: Too Rich, Too Thin, Too Tall?
11 Comments
...Many observers report being bemused, not to say unnerved, by the Viñoly building’s strange ubiquitousness. Visible throughout all five boroughs and as far away as Long Island and New Jersey, it startles both visitors and natives with its thin looming omnipresence and seems to follow you around like a bad conscience. One doesn’t hear much about 432 Park’s design for the good reason that artistic niceties are almost beside the point in the mathematical conjuring that brought it and its peers into being. You could even say this structure resembles a three-dimensional balance sheet more than a fully articulated architectural façade...
Has it won an AIA award yet?
Liked the article, think these two quotes explain everything…….
“Form Follows Finance”
“….these buildings are vertical money”
This criticism is too easy. Yeah, ok, the tall thin type is a symbol of everything wrong in the world (if so, I wouldn't want to live there....). But as architecture, the Vinoly and ShoP designs are kind of nice--simple, not spectacles like in China and Dubai. If you can put away the cynicism for a second, every building ever is a symbol of money. there are a lot of condos and buildings built everywhere, in a variety of architecture styles .... In NYC and beyond. The only bothersome thing about these is how they will be empty most of the time, and with low taxes.... That has a more negative effect.
If it wasn't for ego and money then where would most of the great architectural works be?
Well said, Lightperson.
Lightperson, for some reason I do like it for its simplicity.
You missed the point of the writing Carrera, it is that super rich are building these to escape the 99%ers (or at least giving them the finger) to some loft in the sky. I can understand downtown NYC, but building super towers in the desert is slightly absurd.
Find the subject of coop's is intriguing, which is driving this market.
My two cents looking from the inside: Maybe there is a bubble, but I'm pretty sure it's only happening at the high end of the market (likely the only benefit and by-product of relatively stagnant wages).
Give it a few years, and the low end of that high priced market, which is qualitatively nicer than anything in the mid range NYC market, will crash down into affordability. Worst case scenario: parts of Manhattan become affordable once again.
That these are simple in an elegant way while housing projects are simple in a nasty way is why design is the underappreciated but defining value in cities.
Hopefully, demogaugery by hack critics aside, the rich can have their palaces while housing for everybody else improves too. There is continues huge lack of interest in architectural quality and a media hate for architects continues (including self hate), it will have a terrible effect on everybody.
Imagine: the tall thin type as a solution to low income housing? Hmmmmmm
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