Plans for a four-tower scheme designed by BIG for the east side of Manhattan have been announced by developers Soloviev Group and Mohegan in advance of its commencement in Midtown.
Their transformative Freedom Plaza project will be realized on a 6.7-acre plot near the United Nations complex overlooking the FDR Drive and East River between 38th and 41st Street at First Avenue.
The program calls for two pairs of hotel and condominium towers connected via a skybridge, and addressing the Queens shoreline with a landscaped park and small Museum of Freedom and Democracy forming in the ground-level plaza underneath. A total of 4.77 acres of publicly accessible space will be included therein, flanked by the 1,325-unit residential component to the southern orientation. Nearly half (40%) will be dedicated to affordable housing, according to the project announcement.
A casino space tied to the developer's bid for one of three available gambling licenses from the state of New York is also called for, connecting the two hotels and adding a further financial incentive to the development.
The site is currently the largest undeveloped land parcel in Manhattan. Once it is realized, the two residential towers totaling 50 and 60 stories each will present an architectural homage to the neighborhood’s characteristic midcentury office designs with striped glass and aluminum facades. Their 51-story hotel partners will be finished in metal cladding and a rooftop greenspace on the upper floors. BIG says this will add a sculptural element to the skyline of Midtown. OJB has been contracted to deliver the landscape program at the site as well.
Inside the Museum centerpiece, an open-air amphitheater is enacted as a “symbol of unity” within a form inspired by a Möbius strip and connected to the site via a series of spiral walking paths that equal its geometry.
The hotels will likewise feature a unifying atrium space beset by native plantings. Their cantilevered skybridge that extends over 1st Avenue will also feature a multistory viewing platform, art gallery, and rooftop infinity pool. The project will entail 4.1 million square feet of space, serviced by a public square at the corner of 38th Street.
"Our plan is to develop this site in a way that delivers benefits for the local neighborhood and the city as a whole, worthy of its skyline and waterfront location, and befitting New York City's key role as a leader in the global cultural economy," shared Michael Hershman, CEO of the Soloviev Group. "We value the community input that we have received throughout the planning process and are proud to help meet the need for residential and affordable housing and public open space, as well as providing a daycare, food market, and an array of new dining and retail offerings."
"With our design for Freedom Plaza, we continue to build on these architectural prinicples by uniting three city blocks to form a public green space reaching from 1st Avenue to the East River overlook, creating a green connection all the way to the water's edge," BIG's founder, Bjarke Ingels, followed by saying. "We are incredibly honored and thrilled to be part of the team that can envision a new major public space in this great city, to contribute to the iconic skyline of Manhattan's riverfront, and to imagine the architecture of the museum celebrating one of mankind's greatest inventions: Democracy."
No construction timelines or projected completion dates have been released yet.
Also in Manhattan, BIG is working towards the completion of another multi-tower scheme alongside the High Line Park and has recently inaugurated its award-winning 66-story The Spiral design at Hudson Yards.
15 Comments
Seriously? Cartoon architecture
No architecture, only cartoons.
a. What Freedom in the US anymore?
b. The design sucks butt.
BIG has lost touch with reality, who the bollocks is designing this?
look at me, look at me, I'm weird because I need to stay relevant.
LMAO. This is first week intern work.
I'm curious to know where they intend to put all the rooftop HVAC equipment, window washing davits, and elevator over-runs on that 70s-disco rip-off of OMA's CCTV Tower in Beijing.
Via57 had a lot of problems ... even if it is a spectacular building from afar. Great BMU design to navigate that geometry.
re via57, I've always been curious as to how they deal with falling snow or ice in the twisted facades, does it take up speed to kill pedestrians?
I see they added those tabs to every aluco joint, looks like crap already
I thought it was a Marriots
Sure, why not? Looks shiny enough.
NY will keep getting overdesigned malls until it learns from the failure of Hudson Yards. This is very similar.
Ada Louise Huxtable, supporter of the Holl Hudson Yards Plan, was pushed out at the NYT because the developer and real estate ad people didn't want her there. So now NYC gets mediocre shiny product design instead of architecture.
In signature BIG fashion, the Museum of Freedom and Democracy will be shaped like a Möbius strip. Its form will be a spiraling and infinite geometry, a shape that pays homage to the traditional ancient Greek theaters where democracy was created “thousands of years ago,” Soloviev Group CEO Michael Hershman said. Programmatically, the museum will host ephemera that tells the story of democracy since Plato, and even slivers of the original Berlin Wall.
The Museum of Freedom and Democracy will be designed like an urban agora,” Ingels told AN. “It will provide this journey through different cultural, political, and organizational milestones that have led to the formation and evolution of democracy. Our goal is to allow visitors to immerse themselves in the actual artifacts that are somehow associated with the stepping stones that led to the formation of democracy as it exists today. We’re thinking of using Greek marble, a material synonymous with the cradle of democracy.”
https://www.archpaper.com/2024/02/big-unveils-freedom-plaza-megaproject-un-condos-hotel-casino-museum/#google_vignette
The museum will sit above the open gambling space of the casino—see the plans above. From the description, it sounds like a kind of roulette wheel. Take a spin, walk around, see where the bits and pieces, the ephemera land. It doesn't sound like any kind of meaningful tribute to democracy that might lead to greater understanding. But I'm sure it will be fun, and it might make those who have been cleaned out below feel better. Also I suppose it will give the whole project the appearance of legitimacy.
Somehow.
Democracy, like freedom, is serious business, and the relationship of the first to the second is problematic. Both are demeaned by glib representation.
I thought this crappiola went out with the 80s
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