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New York and London remain the world’s most global cities, as they are the only cities to rank in the top 10 of both the Global Cities Index and the Global Cities Outlook according to the A.T. Kearney Global Cities 2015 [...]. San Francisco leads the Global Cities Outlook due to its strength in innovation. Other cities ranking at the top of the Global Cities Outlook include London (#2), Boston (#3), New York (#4), and Zurich (#5). — atkearney.com
For lovers of city rankings:Melbourne named world’s most liveable city for fourth consecutive yearForbes Releases Baffling "Coolest Cities" ListFor skeptics: The Top 6 Reasons to Be Wary of City Rankings, Ranked View full entry
In the U.S., he isn’t getting asked to compete for new projects at all, he said, amid criticism of the rail project’s delays and costs. [...]
These overruns and years of delay have taken a toll on Mr. Calatrava’s reputation, with local press and some observers painting him as an architect prone to overruns—a point he believes is quite unfair.
“It has not been easy for me,” he said. After living in the city for 12 years and feeling pride in the city, “I have been treated like a dog.”
— wsj.com
Previously:NYMag talks to Santiago Calatrava about his WTC Station, budget, reputationHow Cost of Train Station at World Trade Center Swelled to $4 BillionLegal Troubles Dog Famed Spanish Architect Santiago CalatravaPATH/Fail: The Story of the World’s Most Expensive Train Station View full entry
Still, when Mayor Bill de Blasio today unveiled his plan for New York’s troubled housing authority, NYCHA, dismantling these aging towers was not a piece of it. The plan calls for charging more for parking, redeploying staff to other agencies to save costs and leasing land within the housing complexes to private developers to save money. [...]
So why does New York City still have so many high-rise housing projects?
— theatlantic.com
[...] shadows even turn light into another medium of inequality. Light becomes a resource that can be bought by the wealthy, eclipsed for the poor.
[...] multimillion-dollar apartments in the sky will darken parts of the park a mile away. Enjoyment of the park in the park – a notably free activity in a high-cost city – will be dimmed a little to give billionaires views of it from above.
— theguardian.com
Related: Welcome to the permanent dusk: Sunlight in cities is an endangered species View full entry
The Architectural League of New York announced a new set of winners for the 2015 Architectural League Prize, considered to be one of North America's most prestigious awards for young practitioners. North America-based Architects and designers out of school 10 years or less are invited every year... View full entry
Open data, and the interactive mapping and data visualization that can come of it, has become a de facto engagement and storytelling tool among contemporary journalists, social justice activists, and civic-minded technologists. But despite its allure, open data’s potential for fostering civic engagement and creating transparency and dialogue is plagued by issues of usability, access, and quality control. — urbanomnibus.net
The current race to the top of the skyline is the most impressive in New York City’s history, with ever-taller skyscrapers sprouting from the Financial District all the way to 57th Street. And YIMBY has now learned that 217 West 57th Street, aka the Nordstrom Tower, received a height boost between April and June of last year, pushing the tower’s pinnacle to 1,795 feet. That will make it the tallest building in New York City, the United States, and the Western Hemisphere. — newyorkyimby.com
Previously View full entry
Amanda Burden often said that, thanks to Bloomberg, "we are building and rezoning today once again like Moses on an unprecedented scale, but with Jane Jacobs in mind." That's oxymoronic. You can't do both. As for who's winning the future of New York, it's clearly the followers of Moses. The preservationists are the underdogs here. — nymag.com
When you have every neighborhood looking the same, you know the city is at a danger point. And why should anybody want to live here, why should anybody want to visit here? A metropolis like New York or London or Shanghai is built on a strong sense of individual neighborhoods, and we are destroying that. — GUERNICA
The sociologist Sharon Zukin on the role of the artist in gentrification, challenges to affordable housing, and the commodification of New York City’s loft lifestyle."I blame it all on New York magazine. In the late ’70s, early ’80s, New York, like other US cities, was just coming out of... View full entry
The six-story building was designed by Robert Maynicke and completed in 1899. It served as the offices of Germania Bank (and its future names) until it was sold in 1966 and became a private residence. In 2005, it was designated an individual landmark. Last year, it was purchased by Aby Rosen’s RFR Realty for $55 million. They plan to restore the building and convert it back to office space, with the ground floor for an as yet undetermined retail tenant. — New York Yimby
In collaboration with MdeAS Architects, Jørgen Cleemann of the preservation architecture firm Higgins Quasebarth & Partners received approval from the Landmarks Preservation Commission for their restoration plans. They aim to rehabilitate the stained glass, wooden doors, and other features... View full entry
While the museum describes the 42,000-square-foot addition as something that would “further fulfill Henry Clay Frick’s long-standing vision to offer public access to its works of art," others, including a group of 51 prominent artists and architects — Jeff Koons, Cindy Sherman [...] among them — think it would undermine exactly what they love about the place.
Under the banner of Unite to Save the Frick, this group sent a letter to the city, copied to the museum, expressing their displeasure.
— vulture.com
Here's the letter that Unite to Save the Frick sent to NYC leaders today:May 6, 2015Dear Mayor de Blasio and Chair Srinivasan:The residential scale of the Frick Collection exerts a special power over those who walk its halls. To have visitors experience the feeling of living with art was the... View full entry
Renzo Piano's versatility continues to win the hearts of NYC developers, and it looks like the starchitect is finally getting his chance to flex his muscle in the residential realm. Piano—who just cut the ribbon to the new Whitney to rave reviews—has been chosen by Michael Shvo and Bizzi & Partners to design a brand new 290-foot tower at 100 Varick Street in up-and-coming Hudson Square bordering Soho. — 6sqft.com
The tower will be Piano's first large-scale residential project in the U.S. View full entry
It's been over 50 years, but for many, the destruction of Charles Follen McKim's original Pennsylvania Station still stings (hey, even Mad Men mourned its passing). But now, there is a hopeful (if improbable) plan from Richard W. Cameron—principal designer at Atelier & Co—to bring back the civic jewel of a long-gone New York.
According to Traditional Building's's Clem Labine, Cameron's plan has three main goals [...]."
— ny.curbed.com
Previously View full entry
There's another project coming to Manhattan that's even thinner: 303–305 E. 44th Street, designed by Eran Chen of ODA Architecture.
At 47 feet wide, this one's the narrowest of the bunch. Developed by Triangle Assets, the tower will rise about 600 feet high, creating 115,000 square feet of residential space. [...]
The design for 305 E. 44th is predicated on a stack of volumes; nested between them are the project's signature amenities, private gardens.
— citylab.com
“The Landscape Architecture Legacy of Dan Kiley,” an exhibition at the Center for Architecture, shows how modern landscapes often make a better case for modernism than the architecture itself.
Over a span of 60 years, Kiley (1912-2004), a founding father of modern landscape design, worked for the best architects around, among them Eero Saarinen, I.M. Pei and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. He was fully versed in architecture’s modernist strategies and overriding focus on form and abstraction.
— wsj.com
