No, these images aren't for an upcoming Lego kit design or a fantasy-genre video game, although they might as well be. They're Mark Foster Gage's concept for a 102-story ornamental skyscraper nicknamed "The Khaleesi", proposed for 41 West 57th Street in NYC's Billionaire's Row.
Interestingly enough, the luxury residential tower has garnered enthusiasm that's as amusing as its Gargoyle statue-like exterior, which has been described as "regal", "visionary", and "futuristic". According to a press release from the architect, Robert A.M. Stern commented with a "WOW" in a recent email to Gage. (Interpret that as you wish.)
An undisclosed developer commissioned Gage to design the tower to envision the possibilities of ultra-luxury designs for the site. Built with a concrete frame, the 1,492-foot structure is "draped in a façade of limestone-tinted Taktl concrete panels with hydroformed sheet-bronze details and brass-tinted alloy structural extrusion enclosures," Gage writes on his website. The decorative stone designs would be created at a faster pace using computer numerically controlled (CNC) technology.
The scheme also includes 91 residential units, a sky-lobby and retail shops on the 64th floor, a 2-story-tall ballroom for events, a 4-star restaurant that leads to four cantilevered balconies that promise sweeping views of the city, and a "temple-like observational platform which is then crowned by a golden wreath-like structure fit for any victorious Roman general", as 6sqft puts it.
Gage designed The Khaleesi in response to the steel and glass modernist box skyscrapers that populate NYC's skyline, stating that many of those buildings are "20th century ideas" that are "virtually free of architectural design". While he acknowledges those boxed-shaped skyscrapers have "served architecture well", he claims his 21st-century tower spruces up those ideas and will "aesthetically add to the city". So far, there aren't any plans to build the tower — in the real world, at least.
Get a closer look of the design in the video below.
h/t Tech Times
52 Comments
Gotta be a joke, right? "How bad can we make it?"
Joker's tower for the next Batman movie
Robotic stonecarving research at Yale University, where Mark Foster Gage is assistant dean of the School of Architecture.
That explains a lot
Architecture (or whatever) because we can!
Guess the assistant dean of YALE isn't above architectural linkbait. Pathetic that this is compared to Art Deco, it has nothing to do with it. It's just ugly.
Sad that Yale gives credibility to this kind of garb. Anyone that tries to justify it is a part of the problem.
everything about this is awesome.
of course, art deco is also 20th century. whether it's created with a stone cutter, a cnc mill, legos, or styrofoam, it's still art deco. that's fine though. rich people should be able to live in a new relic of the gilded age.
Just to be clear, Art Deco uses geometric and craft shapes.. Not Lady Gaga-references (I think the only real client of Gage's?). This looks more like Pomo Deco.
Any "architect" that laments the so-called boring design of 20th century architecture in New York can immediately be dismissed as hack. GTFO, please go back to fashion school.
maybee its the new Trump tower
that first rendering looks awesome - the light quality and weirdness of the building forms -
then it goes all to shit - eagles - distorted art deco motifs - horrible material choices - F-
Until the headline includes the words "developer" and "financing," we're safe.
just checked out his website and much prefer this work and within it's genre (whatever you want to call it) vs the more "traditional" parametric stuff on his website.
this might suggest that we are bored out of our minds with standard high-rise design.
I applaud the architect's interest in ornament.
yes EKE I really like his Ornateness and Ornament.
looks like a half ass sagrada familia. Like the client said..."I like that sagrada thing over there...something like that but instead of 150 years You have a week...and oh yeah i like birds...lots of wings...k thanks"
I love this crazimess, it'll be the best new skyscraper built in NYC since the Empire State Building, and will make us all forget AT&T.
While I applaud his "interest" in ornament, I don't like this building. The problem I have with it is there is no sense of hierarchy in the ornamental approach. There doesn't appear to be any rationale to how it is applied, but it seems to simply be slathered over the outside of the building, without any thought to the overall form.
It's telling that the thoughtful video by the architect gives no attention at all to the building form, the building as an object, the tectonics of it. It moves over the building surface at close scale, as if it were a landscape surface and we were flying over it. This is how we often view building through the lens of CAD, of course. But it's not how human being perceive buildings in the real world.
I think that BIG would have been a better choice for this building since there is obviously not alot of concern for the sustainability and social aspect like we put into the thinking about projects. They should think about giving BIG a call as soon as possible as I heard that they are a great office to work for and really make the client happy.
I'm all over this building, in spite of my inner designer screaming in pain at the mish-mash of styles.
Unashamedly, I'm attracted to it. I feel like it's a big, crass middle finger to the faux-luxury glass shitholes they're selling at premiums all over the world that offer little more than a cold, unfinished 'aesthetic' with a glassy exterior.
Yeah, I'm somehow attracted to this because it's so ridiculous. The wings are fairly stupid, but the overall idea isn't really any more offensive to me than anything else being built in Manhattan right now.
I mean, why the fuck not?
Also seems vaguely Nazi-ish--oversize white eagles--get it? Or a rorschach test to see if you are a nihilist. Hey, why not punch an old lady? Let's just litter on the street! There's so much terrible things in the world, amiright?
It only works if Gage is making some kind of ironic statement, but it's probably something much more boring like the architecture as clickbait self-marketing.
LOL to ARP1... Two sides of the same coin. Think BIG is prob too busy designing the FOX Studio to perfectly exploit the 9/11 memorial.
I'm with Stephanie and Donna on this one. I came in expecting to hate it, but I find this hilarious. Whether or not it's tongue in cheek or some sort of commentary on the gridded, supertall extrusion towers being proposed lately, if Gage can propose a building where the only way to communicate the elevation is through a two-minute-long panning video... good for him. It's at least worth talking about.
This building is pretty clearly one, a critique on the bird deaths due to skyscrapers in NYC or 2, a homage to the death of Mothra in a collision with World Trade.
Either way, I'm stoked! Bring back the Plymouth Superbird!
I would almost be with it if not for the ridiculous Eagles. That really puts it into kitsch territory.
Obviously aimed at tacky Russian Billionaires. Everyone else probably has too much taste.
I like that the architectural movement to which it is being closet associated by the title of the article is "Game of Thrones like"...
My architectural sense says ugh, but I would check it out in a heartbeat if it were built, and would probably enjoy it. As far as I am concerned MFG should keep being MFG.
Its Brave and different...not at all a refined work...
I'm with Donna...why the fuck not?!? We've seen just about every shape and texture possible. Why not a pile of ornament that actually looks like something. I think it sucks, but then again the endless parade of minimalist glass sculptures has me so beat down that anything with a recognizable shape feels noble.
I guess I also land on the side of "why the fuck not?!?"
"Why the Fuck not?" Is probably what the Germans were thinking in the 1930s.... All of that Bauhaus social good machine aesthetic was sooooo borrrinnggggg. Why not going with the loudest, most obnoxious voice in the room?
Is like Donald Trump and Lady Gaga had Rosemary's Baby.
is 'germany of the 1930's' your second nazi reference in this thread?
much love for godwin's law. it's still the first page too.
Godwin's law only applies when people have no knowledge of history, so in this thread it probably does. Seems applicable though, especially considering modern architecture history's close relationship to that time period in Germany and the resurgent tensions between politics and architecture. It's not like he's using this language with public housing...
Is like Donald Trump and Lady Gaga had Rosemary's Baby.
I like that description.
I will try maths:
Jelly+Cynism+Short-term Thought = Architects commenting on internet
This is a step away from 90 story yawns. Leggo!
Its honest. It says "for rich people". IMO that makes it a little less gross than the majority of slick glass luxury buildings.
Rich people live in it, but we have to look at it.
I guess you want the wealthy elites to actually r-[assault] your eyeballs? At least the wealthy (used to) have taste.
OK, so this thing is so ridiculous that serious critique seems a bit pointless. But it's fun to talk about.
I have a big problem with the wing orientation. Shouldn't the bird-form be majestically and symbolically striving upward and outward? These big wings look like four birds smashed simultaneously into one another, not unlike the unfortunate bird in this video.
my 7 year old daughter taught herself Sketch up this weekend, a few youtube videos and you can model! her 3rd project she got over architecture and started modeling characters. Specifically a Chicken. i thought why can't a chicken be a building. this project has set precedent and my 7 year old has her finger on the zeitgeist.
<ahem> Olaf, it's really a natural progression and cycle, no?
It is interesting and different, and many of us lambaste it for the unorthodox heavy handed ego driven madness it represents. I think similar things were said about Art-deco in the 20s, the prairie style before that and any other architectural movement. But what is important is will someone build it because we all should remember buildings are not built for architects but for people with money and influence. It may very well be what people want and what we the arbiters of architectural style and good taste may be powerless to stop.
So why not build it, someone is calculating how much it will cost and could be sold for, applied decorations and balconies to a square tube is nothing new and within out technical abilities.
As a work of art I guess by the reactions here is has succeeded in garnering an emotional response, that is one criteria for success in the art world.
Over and OUT
Peter N
^nonsense
"All of that Bauhaus social good machine aesthetic was sooooo borrrinnggggg. "
Finally some one said the obvious. Is it ok to say this now???
Even if you don't like socialism, doesn't mean you go straight to fascism. Probably best somewhere in the middle....
Somewhere Trump and BIG are in a dark room, watching this video on repeat with a tear in their eyes
Anyone who thinks this is better than BIG needs their head examined. BIGs work is the most environmentally conscious, best designed, and most socially aware work out there these days BY FAR. There really is no comparison.
but donna at 7 years old, a post-modernist already. too fast, these kids these days
Resembles the aesthetic of Panem in the Hunger Games...
Which is appropriate because its kinda what NY has become.
ARP1, is Bjarke paying you for your advertisements, or do you do it out of the goodness of your heart?
oh poo poo....we're bored for christ sake! give us something meaningful!!!! and fubar the parametrics.
Yeah, I'm somehow attracted to this because it's so ridiculous
Yes, but I think this isn't far enough. I say go for Baroque.
I've been eyeing MFG's work for probably 10 years. The guy is extremely talented.
It's worth noting that MFG is a Notre Dame guy. Look at this through the lens of the Notre Dame curriculum and it gets 20 times more interesting.
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