“This isn’t your grandfather’s Wall Street.” — Bloomberg Business
According to a statement issued on Tuesday, the design of Two World Trade Center, which was formerly the province of Foster + Partners, is now being handled by Bjarke Ingels' firm BIG and will likely house employees of both 21st Century Fox and News Corp. The media organizations inked a non-binding agreement with developer Larry Silverstein that places them in the tower, which as of now is slated to be the second-tallest tower in the four-tower World Trade Center complex. The proposed move is significant not only because many of the towers still boast significant amounts of unleased space (the two companies would occupy 1.3 million square feet of the tower's 2.8 million total available), but because both 21st Century Fox and News Corp. represent a new type of tenant for the traditionally financially dominated area. According to Bloomberg, Christopher Jones, vice president of research at New York's Regional Plan Association said, “People were expecting financial companies to be a substantial portion of the leased space” in the new towers, but the actual tenants have been heavily media-oriented. In One World Trade Center, the building designed by SOM, media giant Conde Nast is a major tenant. The shift from Foster + Partners to BIG could be said to underscore this shift from tradition to a markedly more high-energy, media-conscious take on the 21st century.
The new tenancy has prompted BIG to alter Norman Foster's design to accommodate a heavier media presence. While the specific details of the new design are still officially under wraps, it's possible that BIG will alter the bottom half of the tower to create a more interactive, collaborative environment, perhaps in keeping with its recent design for Google HQ.
The founder of BIG, Bjarke Ingels, recently gave a notably enthusiastic, media-savvy presentation at the 2015 WIRED Business conference. Norman Foster's public appearances, including his TedTALK, are lively and infused with graphics, although they do not feature the kind of platitude-laden theatrics of Ingels' recent presentation.
83 Comments
davidd - Miles is correct in your discussion method - extracting absolutes and building your case from there..........lightperson is showing that media undestands schematic design well and stops there - because its marketable, brandable, quick and easy.........then we have posts about people complainong about low pay at BIG while senior staff are noted for pulling in money.......which led me to note that the senior staff most likely do more than schematic design. i would be willing to bet a good bit of change that the senior peoe can get involved in the marketing aspect and follow it through to shop drawings, bid negotiations, etc.........you want good pay as an Architect,become a Architect. school can only give you the full experience of one aspect of architecture - schematic design, and it merely hints and inteoduces you to the rest of it which you should be open to when graduating even if that means doing Taco Bells.
knoa
Your friend made a choice to work there - She needs to realize that there is a very low order of a probability of payback for her efforts save for the name on the resume - I did my stint at a major league firm too - truth to tell, the name does help - but 5 - 6 years down the road - better to work with less prestigious but very good firms where one can sustain a career/life balance - at some point, we have to factor in the realities of getting 8 hours sleep/night and paying our bills. Reality is the cop
As I NYC resident, I feel like we were promised Paul McCartney to headline a concert and got Justin Beiber instead.
Bjarke-Boy-Band-Ingels may help the developers of this massively overpriced, mismanaged quagmire get tenants but as for the architectural quality of Tower 2? Only time will tell, but based on their previous built work this is a step in the totally wrong direction. Didn't we learn from Calatrava's fiasco at the WTC that a flashy, media-friendly idea does not a good work of architecture make?
Donna - In response to your comment: "I really hope rumors of BIG - or ANY ARCHITECT AT ALL - underpaying and overworking interns are false. It's just appalling."
This isn't a rumor, this is a documented fact: just see Bjarke's lawsuit back in Copenhagen. His employees in NYC work like slaves for pitiful salaries, just like at most OMA-graduate firms (FREE, Work AC, REX, and of course, OMA itself).
So this is actually a perfect metaphor for a new tower in the Financial District of Manhattan during this century's Gilded Age: a shiny new temple for the ultra-wealthy banking elite, built on the backs of people paid far too little for working far too hard.
Chris,
You and Miles think that I deal in absolutes but this entire time I've been trying to point out that BIG isn't just about branding and PR. I could have easily said "yup yup yup" in agreement with the popular absolute.
"lightperson is showing that media undestands schematic design well and stops there - because its marketable, brandable, quick and easy."
Not quite. He's been talking about the nature of the work that BIG produces, not the way that the media interprets the work BIG produces. Thats a big................. difference.
The way the media interprets BIG's work is built into the narrative of the concept/diagram. Journalists don't like talking about architecture because it is too difficult, so BIG produces the narrative: diagram. W57: it's a pyramid slash court-scraper. Google: it's a growing, outdoor biodome thing. WTC2: ???? Because there is an interesting narrative, nobody bothers to ask whether any of this even makes sense or is a good idea.
davidd...No - same thing. (last paragraph, then read lightperson)
and No on Miles and my point - that's not the point nor was that the criticism. it's the discourse style which Miles was commenting on.
Either way - I'm not really harping on BIG, more on media and society in general. Like i noted before I'm sure there are plenty of people at BIG, senior staff, including Bjarke himself, that can do architecture....obviously.....i'm angling more at the superfluous stuff that gets sold and not necessarily by Bjarke directly either....
HotelSphinx - thanks for joining in...
"So this is actually a perfect metaphor for a new tower in the Financial District of Manhattan during this century's Gilded Age: a shiny new temple for the ultra-wealthy banking elite, built on the backs of people paid far too little for working far too hard."
-
I agree that coverage of architecture in the media is very bad.
We still know very little about the Google HQ. I'm not sure if its because nobody asked, or if BIG and TH just change the subject everytime Michael Kimmelman or Paul Goldberger asks a hard hitting question (ha!).
Chris,
My discourse style is that I try to make sense of your rambling comments and Miles' innuendo. Sorry if that seems like I'm "extracting an absolute". I'm probably a fool for even trying to respond at all.
HotelSpinx - you sly poster.
Davvid I choose better 'media' when I want to learn about architecture like say - Log issue 30 interview with Elia Zenghelis - the bit on the HotelSpinx -
"EZ: New York in those days was not all gentrified, and certain streets were dangerous. Sometimes you walked past a welfare hotel, where bums who would taunt you sat outside on the front steps. And you knew these bums urinated in the staircases inside. And the question that came to me was, would they urinate in the stair if they lived at the Hilton? So I started thinking that so-called "existenz minimum" should be that of a luxury hotel. I extended that to the idea that a luxury hotel offers the possibility of an alternative way of living. I thought that life in a mix of apartments and houses, in a concentrated and congested urban condition, can be very exciting, especially if an efficiently managed luxury hotel supports that life. You had the best of both worlds. Hotel Sphinx you had your apartment, or even your villa - stepped sides of the building are made up of villas with courtyards. The apartments would be serviced by the great variety of social and public facilities on the lower floors and the "neck" of the Sphinx. That was the ideal apartment type." (c. 1972-1976)
Rem Koolhaas - Delirious in New York
"The Spinx is a luxury hotel as a model for mass housing......The head of the Spinx is dedicated to physical culture and relaxations......In reponse to the level of nervous energy in the Metropolis as a whole, the whole head can be jacked up and down."
regardless of whether it's big or norman foster, won't the port authority and silverstein end up taking over the project anyway?
i bet normal walked out knowing how bad it was going to be, and big stepped in for the billboard space.
davvid, I can't speak for Miles, but I'm exacting all day....I come to archinect to Ramble On....
the above post was created while doing the spelling homework with my oldest daughter, it's one way to go about keeping your sanity....not that I don't enjoy spelling words like "round, sound, mouse, now, how, flower, moon, spoon, room....."
+++ Chris. That lego guy kinda looks like bjark too. I would really like to kick bjark in his nuts.
Chris,
I do like Log. I'm a subscriber.
Some fanboys and fan girls may not like this conversation but it's important in this case to point out the charlatan dangerous direction this is for architecture....
This kind of Architecture has become like the colorful boxes they package shitty products in. Its like a colorful cheerful box with a pic of micheal jordan slamdunking filled with fruity pebbles made from genetically modified corn.
but jla-x!
There are about 20 people participating in this thread. The majority is more-or-less anti-BIG. Does that mean anything in the larger scheme of things?
youre all charlatan epigones.
Why don't the clients hire great American architects/ young generation of American architects? eg. Cesar Pelli, Pei, William and Tsien, Manfredi and Weiss, Will Bruder, .....
but a young European architect on a major commission in New York city is funny choice.
For some reason, the clients want to have a European to agree that capitalist architecture, monotonous high rise which soar above 100 level above ground, is at a right direction of city planning. That is why Rem Koolhaas is more successful in US rather than in Europe because he has written a book called, 'Delirious New York' which glorifies tower typology. European institutions are generally more suspicious on high rise.
Do we really want to live in a place that is full of high rises and we cannot even see the sky and breathe some fresh air? When this kind of city planning is going to last for hundreds of years.
However, the clients are very different to general public.. They usually travel by helicopters/ private jet and live in penthouse. :)
'Morning New Yorker!' client, who suffered hang-over from party last night, shouted at rooftop penthouse.
yeah, real wolf of wall street you got there.
i've done so much shouting on the streets of new york it would embarrass us both (mostly you, im over it).
charletin epigones.......why would a bar full of iron workers play boyz 2 men
lapels....
my daughters (4 and 7) just introduced me to this
Pink Fluffy Unicorns dancing on Rainbows
(10 hour mix above)
just saying...
I really don't know how the people walk between the 100 sky-rock towers feel....
Architects has a very important mission both ideologically and physically: it is a battle against the brutal economical trends; as an evangelist of the age and sustainable future for the next generation.
However, the system some how produce some 'academic traitors' eg. Robert Venturi, Rem Koolhaas, BIG who sell the public interests, academic and professional dignity to the power and are happy to become the spoke person for them.
'Learning from Las Vegas', 'Delirious New York', 'Yes is more' are all shameless statements, if you think about it.
When Mies van Der Rohe designed the Seagram building requested the client to reserve 1/3 of the land slot for open public space. Great architects are highly respectable who dare to take on the battle but not against the flow.
Revealed: The Inside Story of The Last WTC's Tower Design http://www.wired.com/2015/06/bjarke-ingels-design-two-world-trade-center/
The Foster design was so much more elegant.
Now I look at BIG diagrams and I think he does it so anybody could believe they understand his architecture, it's like pulling a dove from your sleeve. brilliant scammer.
Update: http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/city-hall/2016/01/8588286/murdochs-abandon-2-world-trade-silverstein-soldiers
^ Big news Donna, think Rupert is in a selling mood…wonder what Silverstein’s next soup du jour will be.
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