MoMA's Proposed Expansion - Radical 75 Storey Tower - by Jean Nouvel

[ZippyTheChimp]

If you look at the high-res images of the two sets of models, the four-view models have a different exoskeleton than the model in context with other buildings.

[investordude]

Let's not forget - this is a "7 star hotel project" in the middle of New York's premier retail district. A "7 start hotel" is not economically feasible in a place that the ultra-rich wouldn't want to stay, such as the no-mans land of the yards. We need to walk before we run - the Hudson Yards is not ready for the super-expensive masterpiece yet. Given realistic constraints on cost, I think the Girasole is reasonable first building for that area.

[Alonzo-ny]

I agree, not bad for a pioneer of sorts, although they could really spark the area into life with a spectacular design.

[TREPYE]

Given realistic constraints on cost, I think the Girasole is reasonable first building for that area.

Yeah well no offense or anything, but you think Kauffman developments are reasonable so we are not exactly on the same level of standards.

[investordude]

I don't think that's a reasonable comparison. I think I would probably have an issue with a Kauffman that was prominent on the skyline like the Girasole - its not reasonable to expect all buildings to look like this Nouvel building given realistic economics for the average need.

[Tectonic]

^^^ The important, voice of reason and logistics. Investordude, I agree.

[TREPYE]

I don't think that's a reasonable comparison. I think I would probably have an issue with a Kauffman that was prominent on the skyline like the Girasole - its not reasonable to expect all buildings to look like this Nouvel building given realistic economics for the average need.

I never compared them first of all. I just said that we are not in the same page as to what is acceptable. As far as reason, yeah reasonable for those who cannot balance aesthetics and civic pride with profit margins. You cannot have too much of one thing, cuz you'll either go broke or end up with a crap design, but too many times developers in this sacrifice the former for the later.

Point being Girasole can be made to be much more appealing than what it is without spending a Sh-tload of $$. The developers for this are still gonna make a lot of money. But then again when all you do is look at profit margin then even a 1000 ft pile of dung will look reasonable for some.

[MidtownGuy]

You've made a point that is extremely important for all of us to remember: for the Girasole to look better, not an extra dime would need to be spent.
'Beautiful design' does not necessarily mean 'more expensive design'!
I mean just look...they're going to spend money on giving it a torque effect so it will look mildly interesting at some angles, maybe it would be money better spent if they just gave us an amazing and dramatic crown. Sometimes it's better to just go back to basics: a couple of setbacks and a top that isn't flat. A taper here and there. Not rocket science, folks.
Look at the silhouette of the Empire State Building in that picture. It doesn't rely on expensive tricks to be gorgeous, good proportions are enough to stir the soul. That's all we're asking for.

[NYguy]

This has been a dizzying week of unveilings, and there's more in store for us. I'd say we are lucky to be getting any of these developments, especially when there is so much more going on in the city, including the gargantuan WTC redevelopment. While the past five years can be seen as the worst of times (in the aftermath of 9/11), the next may seem like a new, golden age of development. So many projects that will change the face of New York are being birthed right now.

[econ_tim]

The shape of things to come?

http://aycu21.webshots.com/image/32340/2000975181326604311_rs.jpg

posted by Don Omar at Skyscrapercity

[NYguy]

^ Nice. The BofA's missing though.

[Chrysler New Yorker]

The shape of things to come?


MoMa tower is shorter and GiraSole and the other tower should be taller+ your missing Extell's tower and you should put in SOM's proposal for railyards for kicks... plus many more around MSG coming soon...(the insanity shall continue!)

[tmac9wr]

The combination of this proposal and the Hudson Yards bidding has my head ready to explode.

[kz1000ps]

^ Nice. The BofA's missing though.

It's there, just to the left of the Conde Nast. It looks like steel erection on the upper-most floors was just beginning at the time of the taking of that pano.

[Derek2k3]

What is interesting is there appears to be two different models, as seen below. The shorter version on the right matches the rest of the renderings, which is unfortunate because I feel the taller version has nicer proportions. My guess is this will end up somewhere around 1150'.

http://www.graffitibiz.com/moma.jpg

If you look at the hi-res image of the taller model (the one printed in the Times), you see evidence of wind turbines at the top of the structure. They are missing in the shorter version , whose top seems to be enclosed. The article below mentions these turbines so maybe this taller design is the one in play.


http://worldarchitecturenews.com/index.php?fuseaction=wanappln.projectview&upload_id=1629

Jean Nouvel's design of the Tower Verre in New York City

With his design for the Tower Verre, Jean Nouvel proposes to take the strict
respect of the zoning envelope to the point where its shape becomes the
tower itself. Governed by its legal envelope and the steel framing needed to
withstand the wind loads, this structure is as unique and singular as the
parcel it stands on. From close up, its receding stealth geometry makes it
surprisingly discrete and unobtrusive for its height. Seen from Central Park,
the bridges and most locations on the river banks, its triangular silhouette
stands out and is very recognizable in the Manhattan skyline, inscribing the
MoMA unmistakably as one of New York’s most famous and successful
cultural institutions. The façades of the tower are a structural glazing in
standard glass dimensions and the bracing structure follows the simplest and
most economical geometry. Living inside this building feels like inhabiting a
power fully present and reassuring structure, similar to that of a large tree.
The tower draws its shape from the desire for more daylight in the streets
and the same daylight feeds its solar panels with energy. Its character is the
structural expression of the wind bracing and the same wind moves its
Aeolian turbines. The solar panels and wind turbines fill the narrow triangular
top section, putting its unusually thin silhouette to a reasonable use. This
tower is a monument to the rules of shadow and light, and to the forces of the wind.

[antinimby]

Good catch, Derek. I hadn't even noticed that bit of detail on the wind turbines.

Anyway, haven't they heard (http://wirednewyork.com/forum/showpost.php?p=198188&postcount=2569) that wind turbines on top of buildings in the city isn't really feasible?

[lbjefferies]

This is from the blog of Lee Rosenbaum, a freelance writer for the relative arts sections of the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal:


It's a MoMA Monster! Nouvel's Towering Ambitions

75 stories? Did they say 75 STORIES???
Trust me, the neighbors and, hopefully, the City Planning Board are not going to stand for a 75-story look-at-me skyscraper on this cross street. New York skyscrapers in this part of midtown are customarily consigned to the avenues; the cross streets are less dense and more lowrise in character. West 54th Street is partly residential. Does Hines, the developer, really have the air rights to do this? Is a big zoning variance slugfest on the drawing boards? Fire up Sandy Lindenbaum (http://www.artsjournal.com/culturegrrl/2006/11/lawyers_seize_the_gold_ring_at.html)!
Speaking of zoning, Hines states that "Nouvels' design maximizes the site while considering the zoning envelope." The key word may be "considering."
This brings to mind the big fight a couple of decades ago over whether MoMA's mixed-use Museum Tower, designed by Cesar Pelli, should be allowed to rise beside it on 53rd Street. There was much talk about possible shadows to be cast on the sculpture garden and traffic nightmares on W.53rd and 54th streets But that 52-story building is dwarfed by Nouvel's overweening jagged "scream for freedom," as NY Times architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff approvingly called it in his breathlessly supportive preview of the plans.
Ouroussoff writes (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/15/arts/design/15arch.html?ref=arts):
The melding of cultural and commercial worlds offers further proof, if any were needed, that Mr. Nouvel is a master at balancing conflicting urban forces.
Since when is mixed used a stroke of genius? Not for a few decades, at least.
From Hines' website (http://www.hines.com/press/releases/11-15-07.aspx), we learn that the project will include "a 50,000-square-foot expansion of MoMA's galleries (levels two to five); a 100-room, seven-star hotel and 120 highest-end residential condominiums on the upper floors....The Hines firm has collaborated with Nouvel on both 40 Mercer in New York's SoHo neighborhood and on the C1 Tower currently under development in Paris."
It has also collaborated on big transactions with Tishman Speyer, the real estate firm of MoMA's board chairman Jerry Speyer, from which Hines has recently purchased several properties (here (http://www.reuters.com/article/fundsFundsNews/idUSL201924920070720) and here (http://www.hines.com/press/releases/8-28-07.aspx)).
I'm still in Philly and not able to manipulate photos for my blog, but you can go here (http://www.53w53.com/), on Hines' website, to see a manipulative photo making it appear that the new tower will be less tall that one next to it. Don't believe it.


http://www.artsjournal.com/culturegrrl/2007/11/its_a_moma_monster_nouvels_tow.html

[Alonzo-ny]

Its hard to believe these people can see sometimes. Oh my god a skyscraper in New York! Where do these people think they live?

[Derek2k3]

She needs to stay in Philly. I suggest everyone to e-mail herl a reality check.
culturegrrl@nj.rr.com

[Ebola]

A new amazing skyscraper on Manhattan Island? DID THEY SAY A NEW AMAZING SKYSCRAPER ON... MANHATTAN ISLAND!!!?! How could they! This isn't Dubai, a place for look-at-me towers! This is madness!

THIS IS SPARTA!

These NIMBYs and haters need to be collected, tied down, and shot in the back of the head with a magnum. Or at least tortured with a slideshow of all of new, tall skyscrapers rising in NY. No mercy. Let's set an example. :cool:

[Bob]

Edit thyself!

[NoyokA]

The nimby clichés are sickening. Do these dimwitted drones have minds for themselves? I wouldn't expect Lee Rosenbaum to actually open her eyes and objectively critique this project, as for taste, she lives in New Jersey, enough said.

[212]

So, are there any complaints yet from nearer than, uh, South Jersey?

[antinimby]

So now New Jerseyans are telling New York what's fit to build on their own soil? LOL.

This Lee Rosenbaum wacko is just another old fuddy-duddy who's afraid of the "big bad terrifying towers."

Looking at her, she should spend more time working on that Don King hair instead worrying about something in another state.

http://www.artsjournal.com/culturegrrl/culturegrrl-thumb.JPG

[NoyokA]

Here's a better photo.

http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/4879/2808/320/culturegrrl.0.jpg

Nice fannypack, but probably the last person that should be a judge of beauty...

[londonlawyer]

She strikes me as a brain-dead person who follows the pack in proclaiming tall buildings to be bad with the thought that it makes her appear intellectual.

[antinimby]

Her hair alone probably deprives some poor small NJ town of their air and sunlight!

She should start off chopping a few stories off that sucker and then maybe she can talk.

[stache]

Pearls with a t-shirt (insert barf icon here).

[212]

Aw, I think she's cute. But this made me laugh!


Her hair alone probably deprives some poor small NJ town of their air and sunlight!

[BigMac]

The City Review
November 22, 2007

Plots & Plans

Boldness at Last on West 53rd Street

Jean Nouvel Designs Mixed-Use Tower for Hines

Another expansion for MOMA

By Carter B. Horsley

http://www.thecityreview.com/nouvel8.jpg

The Museum of Modern Art 's architectural history has been steeped in sleek, elegant modernity but its last couple of major expansions have been widely seen as rather bland and not in the forefront of contemporary architecture.

On November 14, 2007, Hines, the Houston-based development concern headed by Gerald D. Hines, announced that Jean Nouvel had designed a 75-story tower for it that will combine an expansion for the Museum of Modern Art in its base, a 100-room "seven-star" hotel and 120 high-end residential condominium apartments. Hines had acquired the small plot of about 17,000 square feet at 53 West 53rd Street in January, 2007 for about $125 million. The L-shaped plot runs through the block to 54th Street where it is just to the west of the American Museum of Folk Art.

Nouvel's design is quite breathtaking, bold and a bit bizarre. It is definitely not in context, which is not necessarily bad.

Is it a deconstructed obelisk? Is it a hanger for a an ungainly spacecraft designed for a landing on Pluto? Is it a prickly 21st Century urban thorn?

It does not conform to any known building style and that's just what New York City needs more of.

A completely asymmetrical design, it has no traditional setbacks and tapers to a point.

The press release did not indicate the building's height in feet and commentators on the Internet were euphoric about the design and especially about its height that some suggested was as tall as the Chrysler Building, which apparently was based on a drawing published the day before in The New York Times in a rave review by its architecture critic, Nicolai Ouroussoff.

The renderings published in The New York Times and others that could be found on the Internet the next day, and reproduced below, added to the intial confusion as some indicated that the building would have an open crown and the more finished renderings indicated an enclosed, sharply angled top. The source of many of the renderings is www.dezeen.com.

The announcement indicated that the "project will likely commence pre-sales in late 2008.

Gerald D. Hines, the chairman of Hines, said that "Nouvel's exciting concept has the potential to become an international architectural design icon."

http://www.thecityreview.com/nouvel40.jpg
40 Mercer Street

Nouvel designed the residential condominium project nearing completion at 40 Mercer Street in SoHo for Hines and Andre Balasz. The initial renderings for the project indicated its facade would have some bright red and bright blue windows, but the overall color of the project is something like a bland battleship gray. The project, of course, is notable for its huge windows that slide up and down and a strong Lever House-like modernity whose rectilinearity is not out of place in SoHo.

Far more exciting is Nouvel's design for 100 Eleventh Avenue, a residential condominium tower now under construction in Chelsea that is notable for its very faceted fenestration, as shown above. It is directly across from Frank O. Gehry's headquarters building for IAC and the juxtaposition is one of the city's choicest. It is being developed by Alf Naman and Cape Advisors.

Both 40 Mercer and 100 Eleventh Avenue have relatively conventional forms in sharp contrast to 53 West 53rd Street whose angularity far outstrips Sir Norman Foster's Hearst Building tower a few blocks away on the southwest corner of Eighth Avenue and 57th Street.

The announcement stated that "Nouvel's design maximizes the site while considering the city's zoning envelope," adding that its "unique silhouette tapers as it rises to a distinctive spire" and that "its steel and glass façade reveals the diagrid structural design."

The color rendering released with the announcement indicated that the building will have a very complex façade with many diagonal braces, a design that one surfer at skyscraper.com likened to the "the Chicago Hancock Center after being beaten by a blacksmith, hammered and stretched to fit into its site."

It was not clear from the announcement if the project was "as-of-right," that is, a development that needs no public approvals and falls within existing zoning and building regulations. The tower will certainly be substantially higher that the Museum Tower, which is 588 feet tall and was designed by Cesar Pelli in an earlier expansion by the museum. The Museum tower is the east of the planned new building, which is just to the west of the American Folk Art Museum. The Museum of Modern Art undertook a major expansion designed by Yosio Taniguchi in 2004.

http://www.thecityreview.com/nouvel11.jpg
Nouvel's recently completed Quai Branly Museum in Paris

Mr. Nouvel is the architect of the recently completed Quai Branly Museum, the Arab World Institute, the Cartier Foundation in Paris, and the Lyon Opera House.

http://www.thecityreview.com/nouvel7.gif
Nouvel's unbuilt hotel project in the Meat-Packing District

Two of his most interesting designs that were not built called for a hotel projected over the East River in Brooklyn and a tall tower with a bridge to an angled low-rise building in the Meat-Packing District.

http://www.thecityreview.com/nouvel6.jpg
Nouvel designed unbuilt "River Hotel" in Brooklyn between the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges

His first New York City project as a design for a "River Hotel" on the Brooklyn riverfront between the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges. The cantilevered design was appealing but the unbuilt project threatened to interrupt famous vistas of the two wonderful bridges.

Hines built the "Lipstick" office building at 885 Third Avenue that was designed by Philip Johnson, who also designed major skyscrapers for him in many American cities. Hines is also the developer with Aby Rosen of the undulated residential condominium project known as One Jackson Square at 122 Greenwich Avenue that has been designed by William Pedersen of Kohn Pedersen Fox.

In a January 3, 2007 article in The New York Times, Carol Vogel observed that the museum's expansion into the Hines tower "opens the way for the museum to address wide criticism of the exhibition spaces in the Taniguchi building," adding that "When the Modern reopened in 2004 many faulted its curators for showing fewer artworks in its expanded galleries than it had before."

Hines Interests partnered with Whitehall Street, the Goldman Sachs group in acquiring the site, part of which had previously been occupied by the historic City Athletic Club on West 54th Street. The club closed in 2002 and was acquired by the museum out of bankruptcy.

In a review of the new Nouvel tower, architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff wrote in the November 15, 2007 edition of The New York Times that it promises to be the most exhilarating addition to the skyline in a generation," adding that "Its faceted exterior, tapering to a series of crystalline peaks, suggests an atavistic preoccupation with celestial heights. It brings to mind John Ruskin's praise for the irrationality of Gothic architecture: "It not only dared, but delighted in, the infringement of every servile principle."

Noting that the new tower's facade have "a taut, muscular look," Mr. Ouroussoff maintained that the tower's "contorted forms are a scream for freedom." He also noted that "The top-floor apartment is arranged around such a massive elevator core that its inhabitants will feel pressed up against the glass exterior walls. (Mr. Nouvel compared the apartment to the pied-à-terre at the top of the Eiffel Tower from which Gustave Eiffel used to survey his handiwork below.)"

The comparison to the Eiffel Tower may be apt for Nouvel's tower is sculpted structure whose aesthetic is based in large part on its engineering. Unfortunately, it does not stand alone like the Eiffel Tower but it is likely to become a signature element of the midtown skyline.

Copyright © The City Review 1997-2007

[Hamilton]

Her hair alone probably deprives some poor small NJ town of their air and sunlight!


Ha, it's funny that you guys make fun of her for being a Jersey fuddy-duddy, because when I moved to the UWS, this is the prototypical image that formed in my mind of the single, middle-aged, liberal-yet-change-resistant, UWS NIMBY cat lady who would organize and rally the community board against 17-story towers.

[stache]

What year did you move there?

[NoyokA]

An article by the Financial Times, whose headquarters will coincidentally soon be dwarfed by the MOMA Spire. They pin the height at 1,150 feet, which while not the 1,300 feet some have previously stipulated, is perfectly fine for me.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6fb7bf8c-a...0779fd2ac.html

A dreaming spire for Manhattan

By Edwin Heathcote
December 4 2007


Manhattan had long lost its crown as the world’s skyscraper capital when Mohamed Atta smashed American Airlines Flight 11 into the first of the Twin Towers. Yet that dramatic, appalling moment triggered a defiant reaction. A slew of new towers is now appearing, on screens and on the ground.

Renzo Piano’s diaphanously corporate New York Times Tower has just opened to rapturous reviews; Ground Zero is hosting towers by Foster, Rogers and Fumihiko Maki, and slick condo towers are springing up everywhere like minimalist fungus. But the latest proposal is by far the most surprising. French architect Jean Nouvel has proposed the most radical and striking skyscraper to trouble New York’s low-drifting clouds in a generation.

The design for the tower, neighbouring the Museum of Modern Art, is a piercing, dangerous-looking spike, an anorexic contemporary version of the soaring twin spires of St Patrick’s Cathedral, which dominated the city’s skyline until the advent of skyscrapers in the early 20th century.

The proposal, at 53 W. 53rd St, commissioned by real estate firm Hines, comprises 75 storeys of accommodation and, at 350m, pierces the skyline at a height between the Empire State and Chrysler Buildings. It will embrace 5,000 square metres of extra accommodation for MoMA, which will expand into its lower floors, above retail provision, while the upper floors will house a seven-star hotel sharing services with the 120 or so (extremely) top-end condominiums above.

The form of the structure is dictated by the city’s famous zoning and light diagrams formulated in the early 20th century to ensure that some light reached the lower storeys of buildings and the streets below as early, blocky towers began to create a deep, dark canyon effect. It is a subtractive process, starting with a slab that is progressively carved away. It was these regulations that led to the distinctive stepped and set-back shapes of the city’s buildings. But rather than setting back, Nouvel has created sloping, intriguingly complex crystalline surfaces that follow the exact lines of the diagrams.

Talking in his stripped-down, post- industrial Paris Atelier, the architect tells me: “We stuck very closely to the abstract forms of the diagrams but that created a very complex and irregular form. Because of that strange shape we had to put all the structure around the perimeter. The result is a kind of net of random shapes and the idea was to live in the structure, to be conscious of it.

“The building changes shape as it ascends, it moves around. The shape,” he says, holding up his hand, “is like this, three fingers pointing into the sky.” Nouvel runs through a presentation on his laptop, showing proposals for the night-time lighting of the building (“it will make it look like it has blood running through the veins of the structure,” he grins), the extraordinary interiors (“the structure becomes the space, we don’t need interior decorators here,” he grins again) and renderings of the pool and the gallery.

“MoMA itself will have an influence on the spirit of the building,” he tells me. This, I can’t help thinking, is a little mischievous. MoMA’s recent extension, by Japanese minimalist Yoshio Taniguchi, drew praise for its harsh, white elegance but criticism for its severity and inflexibility. Nouvel’s tower, with its structural, almost sci-fi expressionism, is a building in which the architecture pushes itself aggressively into the foreground.

Nouvel is one of the most consistent, challenging and charismatic of the contemporary international superstars. His office has no set house style and his oeuvre embraces the industrial toughness of Minneapolis’s Guthrie Theatre and the transparent clarity of the Fondation Cartier, but it is with myriad kinds of sensuous filigree surfaces that he has made his most startling and gorgeous buildings – from the exquisite Institut du Monde Arabe on the banks of the Seine (with which he made his name exactly 20 years ago) to the glorious, colour-saturated, pixellated shell of Barcelona’s Torre Agbar and his plans for the franchised Louvre outpost in Abu Dhabi, a city of art beneath a flat dome of intense complexity. The MoMA tower is a continuation of this experimentation but using structure as surface and on a supersized scale.

He is also working on a pair of enormous buildings in London, a new retail and office complex, 1 New Change (designed in a faceted, folded manner, which he calls “stealth architecture”) and Walbrook Square, a joint project with Foster & Partners.

The MoMA Tower, though, is something else. Its jagged profile, brash confidence, complex structure and almost gothic profile may well make it everything that the Freedom Tower (conceived by Daniel Libeskind, comprehensively neutered by David Childs of SOM) is proving not to be. Its structure is not unique – Chicago’s John Hancock Tower used less complex diagrid forms as did Foster in his Hearst Tower a few blocks away, while OMA is conducting similarly radical structural experiments in its theatrically weird headquarters for CCTV in Beijing. But, if it is built, it will arguably be the most radical skyscraper in New York since the Chrysler Building.

Not a bad commission, I suggest? “A big skyscraper in Manhattan, next to one of the most well-known spots in the city,” Nouvel sits down and leans back in his chair. He grins one final time. “It’s a dream,” he says.

[MidtownGuy]

For us too.:)

[scumonkey]

Share the Dream!

[antinimby]

Let's hope the dream comes true. And the sooner the better.

[TREPYE]

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6fb7bf8c-a...0779fd2ac.html

A dreaming spire for Manhattan

Nouvel runs through a presentation on his laptop, showing proposals for the night-time lighting of the building (“it will make it look like it has blood running through the veins of the structure,” he grins)
This keep getting better! :D


Not a bad commission, I suggest? “A big skyscraper in Manhattan, next to one of the most well-known spots in the city,”

Alas, One of skyscrapers most overlooked puroposes
land·mark http://cache.lexico.com/g/d/premium.gif http://cache.lexico.com/dictionary/graphics/luna/thinsp.pnghttp://cache.lexico.com/g/d/speaker.gif (https://secure.reference.com/premium/login.html?rd=2&u=http%3A%2F%2Fdictionary.reference.com%2Fbrowse%2 FLAndmark) Pronunciation[land-mahrk]:
a distinguishing landscape feature marking a site or location

Chrysler Building= Grand Central Station
Empire state Building= Herald Square (ahh..close enough:))
Conde Nast Tower= Times Square
Bank of America Tower= Bryant Park
Met Life Tower= Madison Square Park
Con Edison Building= Union Square
Municipal Building= City Hall
Carnegie Hall Tower= Carnegie Hall
One Penn Plaza= Penn Stations Tombstone/MSG

Now (hopefully)...
Nouvels Spire= Museum of Modern Art

[DarrylStrawberry]

How predictable.

Nouvel's Super-Tall MoMA Tower Represents Ode to Zoning Abuse

Review by James S. Russell

Jan. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Architect Jean Nouvel has designed an implausibly thin obelisk that would rise in crooked facets almost as high as the Empire State Building.
Thank New York zoning laws for this chic behemoth, which could cast some of Midtown's most prized and densely built blocks into darkness. Someday such abuse may become illegal.
The 75-story hotel and condo would be wedged between the Museum of Modern Art and 1330 Sixth Ave., a drab corporate tower typical of the 1960s. It's meant to rise to more than twice the height of nearby Museum Tower, which MoMA built in the 1980s, and will define a whole new scale in the neighborhood.
Its 1,200-foot (365-meter) height would cast MoMA's sculpture garden into almost perpetual shadow. Perhaps that's fitting, since MoMA sold the 17,000 square foot lot to developer Hines for $125 million a year ago. The deal allows the museum to add 50,000 square feet spread over three levels of the new building.
The real art in this deal, however, is the zoning. When MoMA Director Glen Lowry started talking up the sale, he said the site would support a development of about 210,000 square feet. Although much about the mix and final size of the building is still being worked out, a size greater than 500,000 square feet is bandied about.
How does Hines do it? Company officials wouldn't explain except to say that the buildable square footage already has been legally established. Exactly how it's done won't be publicly known until Houston-based Hines files for a required special permit, which it intends to do early this year.
Transfer of Rights
The building's height is mainly accomplished by a zoning device called transfer of development rights. This allows unbuilt space to be moved from above nearby landmark structures to Hines's site.
That said, Nouvel (who designed the 40 Mercer condominium in SoHo with Hines and Andre Balazs) offers up a glittering image of Manhattan in the comic-book image of Gotham.
Instead of opening onto a lobby, visitors cross a bridge suspended dramatically over sunken restaurants and bars. In what Hines calls a ``seven star'' 100-room hotel, a spa pool slips between the dark diagonals of the building supports.
The zoning protects some daylight at the street frontages by requiring setbacks as the tower rises. In stacking some 120 condos in 53 floors atop the hotel, Nouvel bends and facets the surfaces to keep within the ever-narrowing, legally buildable envelope.
At most, one unit will fit in each of the super-luxe top 20 floors. Some will be united as duplex or triplex units to deliver enough useful space to justify the staggering (though not yet determined) prices.
Saving Daylight
Perched above Midtown, Nouvel's aeries will offer endless panoramas on two or three sides of each room. Nouvel's defiant coup de grace is to carry a skeletal spire above the penthouse to the point at which the planes of the setback lines meet.
For me, the trouble with Nouvel's design is not so much its great height -- those skinny high floors won't block many views or much light -- but the thick, looming, lower floors. It's not even leavened by the wind-scoured plazas that gather a few puddles of welcome sun along Sixth Avenue. It extends a worldwide trend toward thin, super-tall buildings that mix residential and commercial uses.
I'm drawn to Nouvel's imagery -- the Hines tower could make an extraordinary impression on the skyline. Still, it's time to stop the abuse of this zoning device in the latest race for the sky.

(James S. Russell is Bloomberg's U.S. architecture critic. The opinions expressed are his own.)
To contact the writer of this story: James S. Russell in New York at jamesrussell@earthlink.net (jamesrussell@earthlink.net) .

[Peteynyc1]

^^ This guys argument is for sunlight in the center of midtown Manhattan. What an absolute moron. I walk by this area all the time at all hours of the day and the sun has not shined here in decades. This guy had nothing better to write about and is reaching for a story. If he needs sunshine so badly, he should go take a walk over by Hudson River Park. There should be zoning rules in midtown against not going high enough. I love how he hides behind his Earthlink account.

[Optimus Prime]

Go tall or go home.

It amazes me how often we still get the "tall is bad, mmmkay" argument. Fat casts more shadows than tall, and with a FAR zoning system, you are going to get one or the other.

[lofter1]

When someone starts arn argument with a blatant mis-representation (LIE) I sotp reading:



Its 1,200-foot (365-meter) height would cast MoMA's sculpture garden into almost perpetual shadow ...


This tower will rise a couple of hundred feet to the WEST of the garden.

Nouvel is good, but I don't think even he can cause the earth to shift its orbit in such a way that it would cause a "perpetual" shadow here.

And if the zoning regulations as written allow such a building, then how would this be a "misuse" of zoning regs?

[antinimby]

All of you make very good points. The same can't be said of this James S. Russell dufus. Passing himself off as an architecture critic.

I guess he's an architecture critic in much the same way as Gene Kaufman is a starchitect. What a joke.

[elfgam]

How predictable.

Nouvel's Super-Tall MoMA Tower Represents Ode to Zoning Abuse

Review by James S. Russell

I'm drawn to Nouvel's imagery -- the Hines tower could make an extraordinary impression on the skyline. Still, it's time to stop the abuse of this zoning device in the latest race for the sky.

(James S. Russell is Bloomberg's U.S. architecture critic. The opinions expressed are his own.)
To contact the writer of this story: James S. Russell in New York at jamesrussell@earthlink.net (jamesrussell@earthlink.net) .

There wouldn't have to be any 'abuse' of the code if only New York zoning stated clearly that it was occasionally OK to have a 1200' or (god forbid) a 2000' tower every so often. Instead it operates in this twisted logic that means every tower is always the result of legal maneuvering and interpretation.

It would be great if the city just identified half a dozen sites in mid-town and said, EXPLICITLY, "Here developers must go as tall as possible, at least 1200'...".

[lofter1]

You wouldn't want to make it TOO easy to understand, now wouldya? ;)

There is no need for ithe Zoning Regulations to state that a building can go to a specific maximum / minimum height. Once you introduce a hard number you run the risk that the number will be interpreted as a limit of sorts (and could, theoretically, be used against a proposed super-tall building in the future).

It's more important that the Regs do NOT include any language which outlaw super-talls. The limit is decided by the FAR formula. For the most part there is absolutely NO limit to the height that a building can go -- so long as the owner / developer cobbles together the necessary zoning lots and obtains needed square footage which would allow a building to go tall.

[pianoman11686]

Lost what little remaining respect I had for Russell's opinions. What a hack.

As for zoning in general: agree that it's much too muddled. And even FAR acts as a de facto limit on height in a majority of cases.

[stache]

almost 100 years ago now.

[Ebola]

How utterly stupid. Why we allow buildings over three stories tall is beyond me; I suggest that we create a petition to have every planned building in the city over three stories cancelled, and I think it would be wise to also start razing the current standing monstrosities called skyscrapers all over our city. It all leads to a money-wasting contest, making the little people at the bottom of the towers suffer. There has to be some sort of federal law created to prevent this piffle. Let's contact our representatives. It makes no sense why we allowed them in the first place. Think of all the money we could have used for aiding the people in the world who truly need a warm home less than three floors tall and food on their tables.

[Stroika]

Every time I'm in Midtown, I'm enraged by the way not only buildings but trees, cars (especially delivery trucks), newsstands (both the apparently disliked new ones and the Calcutta-looking old ones), food vendors, dogs (not to mention their leashes and the people walking them!) and ... even fellow pedestrians generate shadows. It destroys my quality of life.

That's not even bringing up the traffic problems they all create.

Ideally, Midtown would be a subterranean labyrinth of offices and shops, with nobody allowed aboveground, so that the Holy Trinity of Shadows, Traffic and Noise could be eliminated once and for all.

Signed,
James Q. Russell
Architecture Critic
:mad::confused::mad:

[Fabrizio]

Complaints about lack of sun-light are nothing new. Remember that the public out-rage over the loss of sunlight over just ONE building in 1916, resulted in the zoning laws requiring set-backs.

NY's romantic stepped-back skyline of legend (and the one we all love) was the result of the bitching and complainig of those early NIMBY's.

The Nouvel Tower looks fine to me, but these kind of complaints are nothing new and should be expected.

[pianoman11686]

^Myth.

[Fabrizio]

"The hue and cry after Equitable's completion led to the adoption of the nation's first comprehensive zoning resolution, in 1916."

Source: A.I.A Guide To New York City, 4th ed http://www.aia.org/

"After this building was completed, the public complained about it and feared that an entire city of these types of skyscrapers would limit the amount of light that reached the street causing the city to feel dark and gloomy."

http://www.nyc-architecture.com/LM/LM059.htm

( And it should be noted that there was pre-history and a movement by civic groups to limit height and require set-backs even BEFORE the completion of this building).


---

[pianoman11686]

^The last sentence is what I was referring to. If anything, the Equitable Building was the final straw that broke the camel's back. Zoning was all but an inevitability by 1916, and if New York hadn't done it then, many other cities were on the brink of adopting their own comprehensive zoning plans.

That being said, the official history doesn't have the nice ring to it of "hue and cry" caused by "big, scary Equitable building."

[Fabrizio]

That is how the American Institute of Architect's Guide To New York City describes the opposition from the public and civic groups. I'll take their word for it.

However, if "hue and cry" is not to your liking, how about "outrage" and "resentment" :

"At the time of its completion, the building caused resentment due to its massive scale (housing over 111,000 m² of office space, a FAR equivalent of 30!), and for blocking sunlight from the street. The outrage subsequently led to the restriction of continuous vertical growth of tall buildings by the introduction of the 1916 zoning regulations by city authorities."

http://www.greatgridlock.net/NYC/nyc1a.html

http://www.aia.org/about_default

Got it Myth?

(funny, but today I find myself speaking with a slight lisp)

[pianoman11686]

Thanks for trying.


I'll take their word for it.

If you're content with a few nice-sounding sentences that summarizes what was years of history that led up to NYC's zoning law in 1916, then be my guest. I've studied hundreds of pages of primary documents that tell a different story.

Like I said: if the Equitable Building hadn't been built, New York (or another large city) would have adopted zoning anyway. And within a year or two (at most) of 1916.

[Fabrizio]

Pianoman: go back to my original post, in context of the conversation.

In your opinion, what is the point I am making?

---

Really folks, if you're surprised by the NIMBY's of today complaining about loss of sunlight with this Nouvel building... the same was happening 100 years ago.

Where it says Equitable Building insert "The Jean Nouvel Building":

"The Equitable immediately attracted attention, generally negative. Shortly after the announcement of the construction of the building, the owners of adjoining properties began to fear for the sunlight in their offices. Opponents of the project initially proposed that a park be constructed on the site."

"Then another plan was put forward: extend NewStreet two blocks north to Cedar. The new north-south street would divide the Equitable block in two, forcing two smaller buildings instead of one large one".

"The project happened, however, to contribute to the growing debate about the future of very tall and very large buildings in New York City, and became a prime exhibit for proponents of a law aimed at regulating the size and shape of skyscrapers."

"It was said that the Equitable blocked ventilation, dumped 13,000 users onto nearby sidewalks, choked the local transit facilities,and created potential problems for firemen. The Equitable’s noon shadow, someone complained, enveloped six times its own area.Stretching almost a fifth of a mile, it cut off direct sunlight from the Broadway fronts of buildings as tall as 21 stories. The darkened area extended four blocks to the north. Most of the surrounding property owners claimed a loss of rental income because so much light and air had been deflected by the massive new building, and they filed for a reductionin the assessed valuations of their properties".

PDF warning (but very interesting reading):
http://nyc.gov/html/lpc/downloads/pdf/reports/equitable.pdf


---

[stache]

This was a time when people in office buildings mainly relied on natural sunlight for illumination, and electric fans were just beginning to be introduced for ventilation.

[pianoman11686]

Pianoman: go back to my original post, in context of the conversation.

In your opinion, what is the point I am making?

I see your point. Not quite sure I understand it, but I see it nonetheless.

Just so you know, my response was solely aimed at the claim that the Equitable Building singlehandedly pushed through the new zoning law. Many forumers here have repeated that claim (through no fault of their own) because it is the unofficial "official" version of what happened. I've tried many times to dispell that story whenever I see it mentioned. (After doing a semester's worth of research and writing 30 pages about it, you gain a different perspective on something that you regard to be an unfair simplification of, what I consider at least, a very interesting story.)

Back to Nouvel: I don't see this as a continuation of those hundred-year-old NIMBY complaints. First of all, Russell's a critic, not a neighborhood resident. I doubt anyone in Midtown is actually adopting a NIMBY attitude to this project. It's one of the few areas that is low in residents, and where high-density, high-rise development is status quo, A-OK, and expected. IMO, Russell's got some bone to pick - either with MoMa, the architect, or the developer.

Secondly, NIMBY's are far less prevalent than they were 100 years ago. Almost everyone was a NIMBY back then: skyscrapers were still such a new and scary phenomenon, that people feared they would make cities unlivable. We've by and large solved the problem of dealing with high-rise, high-density development. (It's somewhat ironic to me, though, that even when the first zoning law was adopted, planners thought the city could be built out (and up) far much more than we do today. Their initial estimate was that New York could accommodate 55 million people, if planned accordingly. Those were revised down, of course, and along with them, total FAR.)

Sorry if this got kind of off-topic, but this stuff is still very interesting to me. Gives you a different outlook on things if you get to know the history very closely, and gain an understanding of the intentions back then. That way, you can compare them to today and see what still makes sense and what doesn't.

[antinimby]

This was a time when people in office buildings mainly relied on natural sunlight for illumination, and electric fans were just beginning to be introduced for ventilation.Very good point. Nowadays, one can say, sunlight has become something they're trying to shield from, e.g. The NY Times' rod's.

Irony.

[lofter1]

... I doubt anyone in Midtown is actually adopting a NIMBY attitude to this project. It's one of the few areas that is low in residents ...

The block of West 54th opposite where this tower is planned has some VERY wealthy residential occupants (they overlook the MoMA Sculpture Garden). They might not be big in numbers but they could hold some influence, although probably not enough to stop the tower -- particularly if it is within as-of-right FAR.

[Alonzo-ny]

Does anyone know of any images of the original MOMA before the recent redevelopment? Also if someone can link the old MOMA thread covering the recent rebuild as I had alot of trouble finding it, id appreciate it.

[NYatKNIGHT]

Alonzo, I consolidated many past threads a while back and I think all of the posts related to the recent rebuild and expansion are in the first pages of this very thread.

Otherwise there is the "official" museum thread Museum of Modern Art (MoMa) (http://www.wirednewyork.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6716), and ablarc's MoMa and Dada. (http://www.wirednewyork.com/forum/showthread.php?t=10836)

[ZippyTheChimp]

One of your best titles, ablarc.

[scumonkey]

From todays curbed:
Wednesday, March 12, 2008


Please Don't Screw Up the Jean Nouvel MoMA Tower (http://curbed.com/archives/2008/03/12/please_dont_screw_up_the_jean_nouvel_moma_tower.ph p) http://curbed.com/uploads/2008_3_53w53.jpg
After French starchitect Jean Nouvel's design (http://curbed.com/archives/2007/11/16/nouvels_53_west_53rd_street_in_gorgeous_detail.php ) for a new 75-story mixed-use skyscraper next to the Museum of Modern Art first exploded onto the scene via a celebratory announcement (http://curbed.com/archives/2007/11/16/nouvels_moma_madness_reactomatic.php) penned by New York Times archicritic Nicolai Ouroussoff, silence reigned. It's almost as if a nuclear bomb went off at 53 West 53rd Street, and now, months later, the survivors are regrouping. And those survivors aren't necessarily happy about the attack. The Observer's Eliot Brown reports (http://www.observer.com/2008/residents-rail-against-current-moma-skyscraper-plans) that a Community Board 5 subcommittee unanimously voted against the air rights transfers last week, with a full board vote to come on Thursday. These votes are essentially meaningless, because it will be the Landmarks Preservation Commission, City Planning Commission and City Council that will ultimately make the call. But dudes, c'mon. "The scale is just totally inappropriate in a low-rise area," argued the vice president of the block association by the site. Um hello, it's Midtown! A world-class architect wants to drop an instant landmark onto 53rd Street, and people fight it. Yeesh, no wonder Dubai has supplanted New York as the skyscraper capital of the world.

[Optimus Prime]

LOL, lowrise...the only lowrises in that area are the townhouses across the street. And guess what, the city has shown time and again that they do not care about townhouses in Midtown. They have allowed them to be torn down with impunity.

[Alonzo-ny]

I dont believe the nimbys will be able to shoot this one down, its midtown, its a stimulating project for the city. It is not a residential area and there are skyscrapers all around. Its attached to a major cultural institution which surely holds some weight. Surely with the worries about the real estate market pushing this one through should be a priority.

[NYCDOC]

Can community boards be put on a garbage barge and sent out of the city? I'd like to see one suggestion in recent years by a community board that really makes sense for the broader community, not just self centered decisions.

In this case though, I don't think there is a chance that these crazies even have a hope. Thank goodness!

[Alonzo-ny]

The public needs a say but they also need to be overruled by people who actually know what they are talking about. If the public says some BS about shadows for example then they can be proved wrong pretty easily, then that opinion should become moot.

[NYCDOC]

Agreed. So where is that balance in NYC?

[Alonzo-ny]

There is no balance, developers seem to be at the whims of the cities political motivation unless they can build as of right.

[antinimby]

I dont believe the nimbys will be able to shoot this one down, its midtown, its a stimulating project for the city.They might not be able to shoot it down but they can water it down.

[RandySavage]

As the economy moves into recession, it may be easier for them to ignore community boards, as construction = jobs.

[Stroika]

Here's hoping some of the members of CB5 and other community boards that use their whims and arbitrary contempt for anything new to give the city a good "kneecapping" turn up in the black book of the Emperors Club.

What do they so dislike, anyway? Is it an upper-middle class guilt complex about building anything cool or being ambitious when there are people starving out there? Is is juvenile hatred of capitalism? Or is it just a tequilafest of drunken hobgoblins of little minds, hating change in the city that trademarked that word?

[Derek2k3]

Everyone should e-mail the idiots at CB5
office@cb5.org

[antinimby]

^ That's a good idea.

I'm afraid that if CB5 isn't persuaded to support this project as it is, the below agencies will (as they have shown with the Con ED site) take their 'NO' vote and their concerns of height and shadows into consideration and ask Hines to scale the size down.


the Landmarks Preservation Commission, City Planning Commission and City Council that will ultimately make the call.

It will be hard to get past all three of those ^ agencies if the CB is not fully behind it. Trust me.

[antinimby]

A commenter on curbed pointed out that the vice president of the block association that made the "scale is just totally inappropriate in a low-rise area" comment is actually Rita Sue Siegel, who ironically heads a design and branding business. Company's website here (http://www.ritasue.com/).

http://www.ritasue.com/images/home/teaser3.jpg

That's her------^

[antinimby]

Residents Rail Against Current MoMA Skyscraper Plans



by Eliot Brown | March 11, 2008 (http://www.observer.com/2008/residents-rail-against-current-moma-skyscraper-plans)

A planned 75-story residential skyscraper connected to the Museum of Modern Art seems headed for a fight with area residents, who claim the Jean Nouvel-designed tower would be dramatically out of scale with the surrounding neighborhood.

The proposed condo and hotel tower at 53 West 53rd Street, which would rise next door to and contain 50,000 square feet of added space for the museum, was hailed by New York Times’ architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff as “the most exhilarating addition to the skyline in a generation.”

Given a complex set of air-rights transfers, the developers of the tower, Hines, would need a set of public approvals, starting with the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission, and ultimately the City Planning Commission and the City Council.

A Community Board 5 committee, which has an advisory role, unanimously voted against the development rights transfers last week, and the full board votes Thursday.

“The scale is just totally inappropriate in a low-rise area,” said RitaSue Siegel, vice president of a block association by the site.

Copyright ©, The New York Observer, L.P.


I thought I should post a couple of the reader comments following the above article because they couldn't be more right on:


David Everitt Howe says:

RitaSue Siegel: out of scale?! Are you on drugs? It's Midtown! If you can't build tall buildings in Midtown, where are you supposed to build them? This Nouvel design is an exhilarating proposal for the New York City skyline. The residents of East 53rd Street need to be reminded that they live in a densely populated art and design capital of the world, not in Seaside, Florida--rather than another blocky, nondescript tower, architecture in New York should be daring, provocative, and inspiring.


March 12, 2008 7:16 PM


Anonymous says:

RitaSue Siegel.
Your viewpoint towards this innovative proposal lacks criticality and it is a design that is desperately needed to establish global cultural attention and provide a fitting landmark that will as a consequence infuse this and other parcels with progressive capacities beyond mindless facades that violate senses and undermine confidence in New York City and the iconic. To project 75 stories as 'completely out of scale' is completely without basis in midtown Manhattan. Additionally as per regulations of setback requirements within the zoning for this parcel, the shape and form of the proposal adheres to these regulations and, I reiterate, in a profoundly compelling design. The citizens of New York and the potential infusion of interested minds globally that provide stimulation for economic growth, cultural awareness and stimulation urge you to reconsider your premature accusations.

March 13, 2008 3:07 AM

[Tectonic]

Ridiculous I say! This IS New York City right?

[STEAMWORKSNYC]

NIMBY's have no logic to reality at all. They just wake up in the morning believing that they are the little victim of the big bad city they "chose" to live in.You wonder what kind of eye vision did they have when they first move to Manhattan.:rolleyes:

[SilentPandaesq]

Again, if this project was entirely commercial, or, a McSam piece of crap there wouldn't be a problem. Out of scale for midtown, please. No one would question the height.

The community board as usual is looking out for their own best interest. Their own best interest in this case is limiting the existing stock of expensive homes in this part of Midtown.

If you have a 3 million+ apt a block away for this stunning piece of new architecture and you want to make sure that it will sell in competitive fashion the best thing to do is prevent nicer stock from coming on line. I mean if you were selling apples on the street and the city gave you the authority to prevent other people from selling apples (and nicer apples to boot) what do you think you would do?

[Alonzo-ny]

They might not be able to shoot it down but they can water it down.

Lets hope not, this is the best skyscraper proposal in the world right now.

This project doesnt need LPC approval, does it? I think like another person said the city agencies will want this one going forward as it just screams that the city is doing great.

[Optimus Prime]

Apparently they do need LPC approval because they are transferring air rights.

[Alonzo-ny]

From a landmarked building, or is it in an historic district?

[Optimus Prime]

The air rights are from the University Club at 54th and 5th, I think. I am pretty sure that building is landmarked.

[Alonzo-ny]

LPC will bow to whatever political pressure city hall decides to apply anyway.

[Love4NY]

Please don't make a mistake by voting this project down. A world class architect is bringing you a real NY Icon/Landmark building and your subcommittee is trying to shoot it down. This building is not only beautiful but also will provide an extraordinary opportunity to put one of the most amazing buildings in the world into the NY skyline. The building is good for the area and good for the economy, especially at a time like this. The project would create construction jobs and bring more influential people into this city. We need our local economy to move forward considering the problems the rest of our country is facing. This is a world class city; Midtown Manhattan has more 800 FT buildings then any other area in the world, the argument that this building does not fit into the context of the area has no ground. This is the most perfect place to put such a glorious building. The area is not Brownstone Brooklyn, Soho, or low rise. This is a high rise area.


Don't mess up the opportunity for all NY'ers to take pride in getting a gift that we haven't received since the Chrysler Building. This is a once in a lifetime gift. We have not received such a gift in over 70 years. Its time for NY to show the world again that we are progressing forward and that we are as innovative as we were when we built the Empire State Building.

[Stroika]

That's all absolutely true ^^^. Just make sure Community Board 5 hears it.

Write them at:

office@cb5.org

NIMBYs' kryptonite is when the community realizes they're not acting in its interests and shouts them down; then NIMBYs lose all their claim to speak for the rest of us. The only way to ensure this building gets built is by writing Community Board 5's e-mail address just a few words, and by making sure other New Yorkers are aware of this project and the dangers posed to it -- and are ready to take a stand against the Commie Boards if need be.

[Alonzo-ny]

Ok I sent an email, I dont normally bother but this tower above all needs to be built and all the CB cliches are at their least true at this time.

Can we all try and send one it only takes a few second, if we can get alot of emails in and if needs be we should all fight for this one, Community Board meetings and all. Im sick of not having a voice and Im wont let this tower get pissed on.

[Peteynyc1]

I sent an email as well. Please, everyone email them and tell them to let this project happen if that is the way u feel!! It only takes a minute.

[Dagrecco82]

I may not be a NYC resident but I also sent one.

[antinimby]

That's the spirit guys. http://wirednewyork.com/forum/images/icons/icon14.gif

Of all the buildings out there right now, if there ever was one to fight for, this would be it.

[Dagrecco82]

My partner just sent one as well. Let's flood that e-mail! :p

[NoyokA]

Emails are good. So are petitions.

In-house:

http://www.wirednewyork.com/forum/showthread.php?t=17405

and...

http://www.petitiononline.com/53West53/petition.html

This is Hines' and Nouvel's legacy. If we can help in a small way and if it is built, it'll be part of ours as well.

[Dagrecco82]

Ok Ladies and Gentlemen, we have 21 signatures for the On-line petition. It really only takes a minute at most, let our voices be heard!

[STEAMWORKSNYC]

I'm in there...

[Alonzo-ny]

This project embodies everything about New York and this forum, this project is all about what I am living to do personally and Ill fight to end for this one. This time we can make a difference and turn the tide of Nimbies in this city. I think Hines is the best developer out there, two Nouvel designs and they even got a good design out of KPF for god sake!

[Love4NY]

I sent that letter last night and just signed the petition. Lets pray these idiots dont ruin a true world class design and a NY dream!

[lammius]

I signed the petition. This building would restore my faith in NY skyscraperdom. It's the first tower proposal I've been genuinely excited about in years!

[JCMAN320]

I sent one as well hopefully it will get build.

[Jeffreyny]

I emailed CB5 and signed the petition as well. Thanks to those who made it easy for us to do so.
Let's get this built!!!!!!!!!!!

[Kolbster]

I signed it too--Let's help NYC get another French designed beauty to grace our skyline. This is too important not too happen. Let's try and get friends and family to sign it as well.

[Ebola]

I don't ever remember seeing this model before. It was posted in the French section of SSC so I have no idea where they got it from and what the heck they were saying:


http://img176.imageshack.us/img176/5002/nouvel2ea8.jpg

[tmac9wr]

That looks really really cool...not too sure how much I like the color though. I think I'd like to see that changed a bit.

[Fabrizio]

Oh my... this really must get built.

re:color This is a somber limestone grey area of the city... I'm glad it keeps with tradition.

BTW: I'm seeing St. Patricks in this building.

[Dynamicdezzy]

This really is a disgusting looking building. I don't know what all the hype is about? Thank god CB5 is doing everything in it's power to stop this....



....I'm just kidding!!

I just don't understand what their mindset is to reject this. I seriously doubt they had the same expression on their faces when they first saw the Empire State. Would they have rallied then to try to stop this from happening? What justifies it now with this building? Their lack of vision and selfishness is just stifling. In 50 years when most of us are gone, this building will remain. This icon will stand tall and attract so many from around the world to come and see. This building screams NY. It belongs here.

[Hamilton]

Oh my... this really must get built.

re:color This is a somber limestone grey area of the city... I'm glad it keeps with tradition.

BTW: I'm seeing St. Patricks in this building.


Absolutely. Its Gothicism is certainly the first thing that struck me. I think Ourosoff's introduction/review of this building did a good job of pointing out all the great ways in which this building was informed by the city's Gothic cathedrals and architectural legacy.

[Fabrizio]

I mentioned this earlier in the thread (at the first posting of the renderings) including a post of a photo of the S.Patrick spires. BTW: before Ourosoff's (well written) article.

[Tectonic]

Though I'd love to see it in existence, I don't like the design so far.

[Matysiak]

I like it very much. Material for another symbol.

[Monumental]

Its beeeeaaaaaauuutiful!

[DarrylStrawberry]

http://www.e-architect.co.uk/new%20york/moma_tower_new_york.htm

http://www.e-architect.co.uk/new%20york/jpgs/moma_tower_new_york_jeannouvel281107_13.jpg

http://www.e-architect.co.uk/new%20york/jpgs/moma_tower_new_york_jeannouvel281107_14.jpg
http://www.e-architect.co.uk/new%20york/jpgs/moma_tower_new_york_jeannouvel281107_8.jpg

http://www.e-architect.co.uk/new%20york/jpgs/moma_tower_new_york_jeannouvel281107_9.jpg

[stache]

http://www.e-architect.co.uk/new%20york/jpgs/moma_tower_new_york_jeannouvel281107_14.jpg


[/quote]

[Alonzo-ny]

The scale is terrible, BOA is way to big and la tour verre is too small

[ramvid01]

BOA's crown is too big in that picture, along with the spire, Chrysler is 100 feet too tall and so is the Times Tower

[antinimby]

French Architect Wins Pritzker Prize


http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/03/31/arts/31prit.xlarge1.jpg
The exterior of the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota, which was designed by Jean Nouvel. More Photos > (http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2008/03/28/arts/20080331_PRITZ_SLIDESHOW_index.html)


By ROBIN POGREBIN
Published: March 31, 2008 (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/31/arts/design/31prit.html)

Jean Nouvel, the bold French architect known for such wildly diverse projects as the muscular Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis and the exotically louvered Arab World Institute in Paris, has received architecture’s top honor, the Pritzker Prize.

Mr. Nouvel, 62, is the second French citizen to take the prize, awarded annually to a living architect by a jury chosen by the Hyatt Foundation. (Christian de Portzamparc of France won in 1994.) His selection is to be announced Monday.

“For over 30 years Jean Nouvel has pushed architecture’s discourse and praxis to new limits,” the Pritzker jury said in its citation. “His inquisitive and agile mind propels him to take risks in each of his projects, which, regardless of varying degrees of success, have greatly expanded the vocabulary of contemporary architecture.”

In extending that vocabulary Mr. Nouvel has defied easy categorization. His buildings have no immediately identifiable signature, like the curves of Frank Gehry or the light-filled atriums of Renzo Piano. But each is strikingly distinctive, be it the Agbar Tower in Barcelona (2005), a candy-colored, bullet-shaped office tower, or his KKL cultural and congress center in Lucerne, Switzerland (2000), with a slim copper roof cantilevered delicately over Lake Lucerne.

“Every time I try to find what I call the missing piece of the puzzle, the right building in the right place,” Mr. Nouvel said this month over tea at the Mercer Hotel in SoHo.

Yet he does not design buildings simply to echo their surroundings.
“Generally, when you say context, people think you want to copy the buildings around, but often context is contrast,” he said.

“The wind, the color of the sky, the trees around — the building is not done only to be the most beautiful,” he said. “It’s done to give advantage to the surroundings. It’s a dialogue.”

The prize, which includes a $100,000 grant and a bronze medallion, is to be presented to Mr. Nouvel on June 2 in a ceremony at the Library of Congress in Washington.

Among Mr. Nouvel’s New York buildings are 40 Mercer, a 15-story red-and-blue, glass, wood and steel luxury residential building completed last year in SoHo, and a soaring 75-story hotel-and-museum tower with crystalline peaks that is to be built next to the Museum of Modern Art in Midtown. Writing in The New York Times in November, Nicolai Ouroussoff said the Midtown tower “promises to be the most exhilarating addition to the skyline in a generation.”

Born in Fumel in southwestern France in 1945, Mr. Nouvel originally wanted to be an artist. But his parents, both teachers, wanted a more stable life for him, he said, so they compromised on architecture.

“I realized it was possible to create visual compositions” that, he said, “you can put directly in the street, in the city, in public spaces.”

At 20 Mr. Nouvel won first prize in a national competition to attend the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. By the time he was 25 he had opened his own architecture firm with François Seigneur; a series of other partnerships followed.

Mr. Nouvel cemented his reputation in 1987 with completion of the Arab World Institute, one of the “grand projects” commissioned during the presidency of François Mitterrand. A showcase for art from Arab countries, it blends high technology with traditional Arab motifs. Its south-facing glass facade, for example, has automated lenses that control light to the interior while also evoking traditional Arab latticework. For his boxy, industrial Guthrie Theater, which has a cantilevered bridge overlooking the Mississippi River, Mr. Nouvel experimented widely with color. The theater is clad in midnight-blue metal; a small terrace is bright yellow; orange LED images rise along the complex’s two towers.

In its citation, the Pritzker jury said the Guthrie, completed in 2006, “both merges and contrasts with its surroundings.” It added, “It is responsive to the city and the nearby Mississippi River, and yet, it is also an expression of theatricality and the magical world of performance.”

The bulk of Mr. Nouvel’s commissions work has been in Europe however.
Among the most prominent is his Quai Branly Museum in Paris (2006), an eccentric jumble of elements including a glass block atop two columns, some brightly colorful boxes, rust-colored louvers and a vertical carpet of plants. “Defiant, mysterious and wildly eccentric, it is not an easy building to love,” Mr. Ouroussoff wrote in The Times.

A year later he described Mr. Nouvel’s Paris Philharmonie concert hall, a series of large overlapping metal plates on the edge of La Villette Park in northeastern Paris, as “an unsettling if exhilarating trip into the unknown.”

Mr. Nouvel has his plate full at the moment. He is designing a satellite of the Louvre Museum in Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates, giving it a shallow domed roof that creates the aura of a just-landed U.F.O. He recently announced plans for a high-rise condominium in Los Angeles called SunCal tower, a narrow glass structure with rings of greenery on each floor. His concert hall for the Danish Broadcasting Corporation is a tall rectangular box with transparent screen walls.

Before dreaming up a design, Mr. Nouvel said, he does copious research on the project and its surroundings. “The story, the climate, the desires of the client, the rules, the culture of the place,” he said. “The references of the buildings around, what the people in the city love.”

“I need analysis,” he said, noting that every person “is a product of a civilization, of a culture.” He added: “Me, I was born in France after the Second World War. Probably the most important cultural movement was Structuralism. I cannot do a building if I can’t analyze.”

Although he becomes attached to his buildings, Mr. Nouvel said, he understands that like human beings, they grow and change over time and may even one day disappear. “Architecture is always a temporary modification of the space, of the city, of the landscape,” he said. “We think that it’s permanent. But we never know.”

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

[BrooklynRider]

“Generally, when you say context, people think you want to copy the buildings around, but often context is contrast,” he said.

Interesting

[DarrylStrawberry]

Nouvel's New York

Abroad in New York (http://www2.nysun.com/related_results.php?term=Abroad+in+New+York&topic=TRUE)


By FRANCIS MORRONE (http://www2.nysun.com/authors/Francis+Morrone)
April 3, 2008
Not long ago, many critics lamented that New York had too insular an architectural culture, in which geniuses from outside the city had great difficulty securing commissions here. That has changed, and Jean Nouvel (http://www2.nysun.com/related_results.php?term=Jean+Nouvel), who on Monday won the Pritzker Architecture Prize, represents the transformation that has made foreign architects desirable to New York developers who are seeking to cash in on the cachet of hot, heavily touted global designers. Never before in New York has it seemed so incumbent upon developers that they hire a "name."

Since the Prize was begun in 1979, 30 Pritzkers have been awarded. Many refer to it as architecture's top honor, though others consider the Driehaus Prize, which recognizes architects "whose work embodies the principles of traditional and classical architecture and urbanism in contemporary society," to be the field's most prestigious award. By my rough count, 15 of the Pritzker architects have worked or are slated to work in New York, on projects of varying scale. Tadao Ando of Japan is represented by a restaurant, and Rem Koolhaas of Holland by a retail store. On the other hand, Norman Foster, whose firm is based in London, designed the Hearst Tower and is the architect of one of the towers scheduled to rise on the World Trade Center site. And the town is awash with buildings by Pritzker laureates, such as the New York-based Richard Meier (http://www2.nysun.com/related_results.php?term=Richard+Meier) and Renzo Piano of Italy. Mr. Nouvel rose to international superstardom in the 1980s with his Institut du Monde Arabe (1981–87) in Paris. The architect was only 35 when he won the 1980 competition for the building. He first tested New York's waters in 1999, when he was commissioned by the Brooklyn developer David Walentas to design a hotel and theater complex for the DUMBO waterfront. That project, however, never made it past the design stage.

Mr. Nouvel next showed up in 2001, with a design commissioned by hotelier André Balazs and the development company Hines for a 180-room hotel in SoHo. The local community board strenuously opposed the plan, claiming that the design was out of keeping with the SoHo Historic District in which the hotel would be located. But the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, which must review all designs for new construction in historic districts, gave its approval. The project evolved into the larger-scaled 40 Mercer Street Residences, on the north side of Grand Street between Mercer Street and Broadway. (The site was once occupied by Lord & Taylor, but had been a parking lot for many years.)

Mr. Nouvel's modernist pastiche at 40 Mercer consists largely in exploiting wide window bays (in a manner reminiscent of I.M. Pei's 88 Pine Street from 1973), using dramatic new forms of glass that varies from true transparency to total opacity, and in color (vibrant, beautiful blue and red). He employs glass that looks very different at different times of day, lending to the building a varying level of ethereality. The metal grid holding the windows is, as in the work of Mr. Meier, as crisply delineated as can be. I can't say the building is out of place where it is. This kind of sleek, gridded neomodernism does well in context with buildings such as the justly celebrated cast iron-fronted loft buildings of SoHo or, elsewhere in the city, early 20th-century reinforced-concrete industrial buildings.

I am bothered that the building already seems not to be weathering well. It's all just a little too much perfection for gritty New York, where dirt and debris settle in the seams between metal members, metal panels buckle, and the lintels or hoods that keep rain off the all-important windows channel the water down the narrow slits between windows, streaking them in an unattractive way. And the narrow light-court that separates 40 Mercer from the building to its north is utterly drab.

Also, I wonder also the current penchant for glass among many leading architects. Mr. Nouvel treats his windows as screens, or fields of imagery, that inevitably de-emphasize the building's corporeality. Up Broadway, between Prince and Spring streets, stands the late Italian architect Aldo Rossi's Scholastic Building (1995), by the Pritzker laureate of 1990. Here's a building that seems to be holding up and even acquiring a patina of age like buildings of old. It's not about the glass — not at all. The white stone piers, rust-red horizontal steel bands, and green steel spandrels lend a powerful physicality to the building, together with beautiful colors, that makes it look like a keeper.

Hines has tapped Mr. Nouvel to design a 75-story residential and hotel building abutting the Museum of Modern Art (http://www2.nysun.com/related_results.php?term=The+Museum+of+Modern+Art) to the west. MoMA will expand into the second, fourth, and fifth floors of the building. The extreme height (on a very narrow lot) has nonplussed some neighborhood residents, yet a clear consensus has emerged on the Web logs that if you're going to build super-tall buildings in New York, then you can't really make the case that 53rd Street and the Avenue of the Americas is an unsuitable location for one.

[Tectonic]

Is there a thread for 1330 next door, Its changing colors lol. www.1330aoa.com (http://www.1330aoa.com)

http://www.1330aoa.com/images/exterior_2.png

A small cosmetic upgrade. Its like she traded in bell bottoms to......whatever's in now.

[philvia]

..........whatever's in now.


hmmm i think that would be skinny jeans :p

[NoyokA]

This is one recladding that I don't really mind.

[Citytect]

It's not being reclad. Mostly just a paint job.

[lofter1]

The building was a bronze-tone metal since day 1.

But now it appears that they are painting the metal an aluminum-tone.

Anybody know the specfics? And what the prospects are for painting exterior metal like that?

I know when I've re-painted old patio furniture the new coat doesn't hold up too well :cool:

[NoyokA]

I would guess powder coating.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powder_coating

[BrooklynLove]

this is macklowe - and i could knit a sweater faster - this has been going at a slower than glacial pace

[lofter1]

... powder coating ...

But they are doing the color-change on-site and by crews working in (basically) the open air.

It would seem that the needed heat-application stage of powder coating would be a problem under those conditions.

:confused:

[Alonzo-ny]

Knowing Macklowe he went to Home Depot and picked up some gloss that was on sale.

[stache]

Even if the paint job winds up looking distressed it might be an interesting effect.

[londonlawyer]

Knowing Macklowe he went to Home Depot and picked up some gloss that was on sale.

I agree. Macklowe is a gonef [i.e., a thief for those not proficient in Yiddish]!

[Tectonic]

Like clockwork. Mention the name Macklowe in any thread and he will be there to blast him lol.

[stache]

Our watchdog. ;)

[TREPYE]

April 6, 2008

The Contextualizer

By ARTHUR LUBOW
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/06/magazine/06nouvel.html?pagewanted=1

EVERY JEAN NOUVEL BUILDING tells a story. Typically, architects begin the design process with a sketch pad or scale models, but Nouvel starts with an idea he can express in words. “Everyone is a product of his epoch,” he told me recently. “For me, I was born in France after the war; I was in the milieu of Structuralist thinkers. If I don’t have a good analysis of something, I am lost.” Once Nouvel examines his given conditions and decides that the best architectural solution is, say, a skyscraper without visible base and summit, or a mechanized geometric facade that casts filigreed shadows, he can get going. But to this cerebral process he appends a counterweight: the sensuous love of the material components of a building. “What I like is the poétique of the situation,” he said, in Gallically accented English. “I am a hedonist, and I want to give pleasure to other people.” That avowal of hedonism gained credibility from the surroundings in which it was made: Le Duc, arguably the best seafood restaurant in Paris, where the waiter knew without instruction to bring Nouvel’s standard order of marinated raw fish followed by poached lobster dressed with olive oil.
Nouvel treats favorite restaurants as his office annexes, where he can develop his creative ideas in stereotypically French fashion — over long, wide-ranging discussions, lubricated by excellent food and wine. From this unchanging routine he achieves a wild variety of results. Most visitors to Paris would probably be surprised to learn that a single architect is responsible for the Fondation Cartier, a light-flooded, rectangular glass building in the Montparnasse district that is sandwiched elegantly between two huge glass screens, and the Musée du Quai Branly, a hodgepodge of vividly colored components with a spooky, tenebrous exhibition hall that veers perilously close to kitsch. “Of course, you can find a lot of contradictions between all my buildings,” Nouvel told me. “I have no global reasons; I have particular reasons.” Other critically praised architectural firms, like Herzog & de Meuron and Rem Koolhaas’s Office for Metropolitan Architecture, make similar claims. Nouvel’s projects, however, lack not only a recurring formal vocabulary but even a readily apparent common sensibility.
Nouvel is, at 62, a bulky man with an enormous shaved head, an intense gaze, bushy black eyebrows and an all-black wardrobe that he often complements with a broad-brimmed black hat. He makes an unmistakable impression, yet despite his powerful personality, he is exceptionally good at allowing a building to take on a personality of its own. With some of his projects, that personality is coolly and irresistibly seductive, and with others, it is brassy, even cheesy.
Last week, Nouvel was named the winner of his profession’s highest honor, the Pritzker Architecture Prize. As his close friend the architect Frank Gehry told me last month, Nouvel was “long overdue” to win it, but the inconsistency of his work got in the way. “He’s precarious,” explained Gehry, who was on the awards jury until last year. “He tries things, and not everything works. There’s a mixture of things that are extraordinary, things that are experiments, things that don’t come off aesthetically. But Jean is willing to jump in and take on things and try. That’s a great quality.”
Even before receiving the Pritzker, Nouvel in recent years has garnered the recognition that architects most covet — prestigious and challenging commissions all over the world. He is doing a concert hall in Paris and another in Copenhagen; in the Middle East, he is designing the Louvre Abu Dhabi and an annex to the Qatar National Museum. In New York City alone, his firm has built a stylish residential condominium in SoHo; broken ground on another innovative condo tower with a tessellated glass curtain wall in West Chelsea; and won the commission to construct what could become a city landmark, a 75-story Midtown skyscraper next to the Museum of Modern Art. The twisting, angular MoMA tower, says Nouvel’s business partner, Michel Pelissié, is “the most important project for him now.” Nouvel was so eager to land the deal that he urged Pelissié not to negotiate too hard on fees with the developer.
Nouvel’s next-to-MoMA scheme looks like no other high-rise in the city, but he told me, “It is a kind of archetype of what can be a skyscraper in New York.” He sees the existing architecture of a city as a record of how previous builders responded to the unique geographical and historical conditions of that place; therefore he argues that rigorous analysis, not dumb replication, is the way to design a new structure that is truly contextual. “Every architecture is an opportunity to create what I call the missing pieces of the puzzle,” he explained. “To find how you can create more poetry with the place where you are and the program you have. You research what will be the most emotional, the most perfect, the most natural.” The purpose of all the thinking, he says, is to arrive at a result that makes gut sense.
Following a working lunch in early January, Nouvel strolled — he does not like to walk fast — to the Quai Branly, to meet representatives of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, who were in Paris to interview him and look at some of his buildings. They were in the midst of a search to select the architect of a new opera house and cultural center in Athens. Before entering the museum, Nouvel pointed out to me the particularities of the Branly site, which extends from the boulevard along the Seine to a quietly affluent residential block. Nouvel erected a glass wall (on the high-traffic river side) to mark the line of the streetscape and placed his buildings in a garden behind it. When you look through the glass wall from the street, the reflections of the trees on the boulevard mingle with the blurred images of the trees in the garden within, so it is difficult to say which is where. This is what Nouvel calls a “game” — the French word “jeu” can also refer to the play of light on a surface, a pun or a witticism, all of which seem appropriate to the architectural games he loves.
The Musée du Quai Branly houses the national collections of African, Oceanic and Native American art that were formerly displayed in anthropological museums, mainly in the Musée de l’Homme and the Musée des Arts Africains et Océaniens. Even more than the challenge of inserting his architecture into an awkward urban site, the task of creating a suitable home for these cultural artifacts fascinated Nouvel. He resolved to exhibit them in settings that recalled their native environments. “It’s not an Occidental building,” he told me. “For me it is a world done with colors and shapes linked to an interpretation of Africa and Oceanic and American culture.” His solution seems to have delighted the general public, but it has outraged many anthropologists and museologists who mourn the loss of a cleaner, clinical display.
To reach the permanent collection, you must ascend a white ramp that coils around a cylindrical showcase of musical instruments. At the end of the ramp, the light dims, the ceiling lowers and the white walls and floor yield to dark red and brown surfaces. Voilà! You have left Europe behind.
A half-dozen middle-aged white men from the Niarchos Foundation were waiting for Nouvel just beyond the frontier. He greeted them in English and started his spiel. “For me it was very important to create a territory,” he said.
“Some critics say it is like a Disney museum. But I do not think it is the right attitude to show this art on white walls.” To evoke the religious emotion that should, in his view, suffuse the museum’s objects, he darkened the surroundings. “That was also very polemical, because people in Europe have the habit of white walls with a lot of light,” he explained. “So here every piece of art is done with the exact lighting that you need to see it. That is not what people are expecting.” His firm designed bespoke installations for 4,000 objects, working to conceal the light sources and to make the showcases as invisible as possible. (Indeed, wherever he could, Nouvel eliminated the vitrines and exhibited the objects out in the open.) He also grouped pieces in evocative ways. Standing between a big glass case of funerary idols and a smaller one of ritual objects, he pointed out how the reflections of the idols flickered on the glass of the opposite vitrine. “It’s a game with the spirits of the dead people, so you see the reflections like ghosts,” he said.
Night was falling as Nouvel, a few of his colleagues and the Greek visitors rode to the Fondation Cartier. Completed in 1994, this glass-and-steel temple to haute bourgeois good taste is a recognized masterpiece of 20th-century architecture. In many of its features, it prefigures the Branly: a glass wall at the height of the neighboring buildings, to separate the complex from the sidewalk and maintain the continuity of the streetscape; a building set back in a garden; and an elaborate play of the reflections of trees on glass. Yet the Fondation Cartier comes across like a slim woman in a black dress and pearls, while the Quai Branly is a guy with a diamond-studded tooth, duded up in a yellow shirt and orange plaid suit for a night out in Lagos or Port-au-Prince. At the Fondation Cartier, I mentioned to Nouvel how surprising it was that the architect of this modernist classic would design the Branly. “I never imagined I could do a building like Branly,” he replied. “But with a question like Branly, you have to have a building like Branly.”
NOUVEL INHERITED HIS LOVE of gathering knowledge from his parents, who were high-school teachers in the small town of Sarlat in the Périgord in southwestern France. (They still live there in retirement.) His father taught history and geography — the subjects that would become the two governing vectors of Nouvel’s architecture. Nouvel wanted to be a painter, but his parents insisted that he would never earn a living and urged him to be a mathematician or scientist instead. “I tried to find another way,” he told me. “I said, ‘Maybe I can do architecture.”’ After a year of study, he failed the entry examination for architecture school in Bordeaux, which turned out to be a blessing. When he took the test again in Paris the following year, he came in first. That distinction would enable him while still a student at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts to obtain a position as assistant to Claude Parent and Paul Virilio, an architect and a cultural theorist, respectively, whose experimental architecture firm deeply influenced his outlook. (To reinforce the presence of critical thinking at the Ateliers Jean Nouvel, he keeps an in-house pundit on retainer.)
Nouvel openly disdained the Beaux-Arts teaching method, which valued the drawing of beautiful details over research and critique. Asked to submit a design for a children’s library as his thesis presentation, he handed in a written analysis of the drawings that children in different regions of France came up with when asked what a library looks like. (His thesis was rejected.) Required to conduct a study of towers, he rebutted the expectation that he would review skyscrapers of the International Style and researched mobile towers that in the Middle Ages were used to attack castles. (Also rejected.) The student protests and strikes of 1968 interrupted his education. Before his eventual graduation in 1971, he began working at Parent’s behest as a project manager — even though, he says, “I knew nothing, and the construction manager understood I knew nothing.” He learned quickly, however, and his ambition grew commensurately, perhaps too rapidly to suit his mentors. When he told Parent that he was designing a house for a friend in southwestern France, the older architect encouraged him to go out on his own, promising him small referrals.
I n his earliest buildings, Nouvel gave material expression to critical ideas. One notable example is the Dick House: after local codes required him to alter his original design, he constructed the house in two shades of brick — brown for the parts that he was permitted to build to plan, red for the amendations. The Dick House was realized, but many of his early projects were not. Still, they added to his growing reputation among architects.
His international breakthrough came with the Institut du Monde Arabe, a tour de force that opened in 1987. Wedged along the Seine, between Paris’s medieval kernel of the Île Saint-Louis to the north and the brutally modern campus of Jussieu university to the south, the Institut presents two very different facades. On the north, Nouvel aligned it precisely with the towers of the Notre Dame Cathedral, and using a newly available material, fritted glass, he etched in baked white ceramic a computer-generated image of the skyline across the river.
What captured the popular imagination, however, was the south facade, where Nouvel devised a sophisticated technological rendition of the moucharabieh, or latticed screens of Moorish patios and balconies. “The vocation of the building was to talk about Arab culture,” he told me. “If it is a homage, then it has to use the two main aspects of Arab architecture, geometry and light. But in Arab countries there are only sunny days. In Paris, more than half the days are cloudy. I need glass and insulation, because it gets cold and rainy, and I imagine an adjustment of the geometry to get the right light.” He invented a system of diaphragms like those that regulate the opening of a camera shutter. Controlled by a computer according to the external temperature and brightness, they would admit 30 percent of the available light when fully open and 9 percent when closed, “to have always the right intensity of light inside and to have the right solar protection,” he said. “But it was also to create a feeling of preciousness. A moucharabieh in wood or marble is very precious. You have to find the same feeling. If you don’t, you have something like Disney.” By arranging the aluminum diaphragms in a geometric pattern and covering them with glass, he gave the building the aura of an expensive, finely calibrated watch. In the end, the system was so successful that it defeated itself. To produce within the building the emotionally powerful effect of light and shadow that the architect desired, the motorized diaphragm openings rarely needed to change. But tourists wanted to see a demonstration; to Nouvel’s deep irritation, the authorities mandated that the computer controls be overriden so that the diaphragms open and close every hour. With each new presidential administration, Nouvel has petitioned to restore his scheme, so far without success.
The building was also weakened by cost-cutting measures, including the elimination of a fabulous-sounding feature, a fountain in which water would bubble up and down from a glass-covered tank that contained mercury swirling in arabesques in the water — an allusion to a passage in the “Arabian Nights” (unearthed by the in-house thinker of that period) on mercury shimmering under the moon. Notwithstanding the compromises, the building remains a revered work of the ’80s, utilizing the technical resources that were in vogue at the time but hiding most of the gadgetry. “Since the ’70s I have said, to show the beautiful beam is not interesting,” Nouvel told me. “What is interesting is when an engineer cannot imagine how the building is done. You show only the result, not how you arrive at the result.”
The year after the Institut opened, Nouvel brought in a partner, Emmanuel Cattani, who had political contacts and experience in building factories. The firm grew to more than 100 people, completing such major projects as a conference center in Tours, a transformation of the opera house in Lyon and the Fondation Cartier. Its most ambitious endeavor was a skyscraper that Nouvel (adapting a term from the artist Brancusi) called the “tour sans fins,” or endless tower. Conceived as a kind of minaret alongside the squat, monumental Grande Arche de La Défense, the endless tower has taken on some of the mystique of Mies van der Rohe’s unbuilt Friedrichstrasse glass skyscraper of 1921. To obscure its lower end, the tower was designed to sit within a crater. Its facade, appearing to vanish in the sky, changed as it rose, from charcoal-colored granite to paler stone, then to aluminum and finally to glass that became increasingly reflective, all to enhance the illusion of dematerialization. It would have been the world’s thinnest skyscraper, rising almost 1,400 feet from a base 138 feet in diameter.
Nouvel has gone on to use the cylindrical shape of the endless tower in subsequently built projects: the Agbar Tower in Barcelona and the Doha High-Rise Office Building in Qatar. All three skyscrapers use a system of peripheral load-bearing beams to maximize the floor space. But Nouvel arrived at the same solution through different routes. The Agbar Tower is based on the catenary curve, employed by Barcelona’s most famous architect, Antonio Gaudí. And Gaudí himself, in using the parabola formed by a hanging chain, was referring to the extraordinary shapes of the rock pinnacles of nearby Montserrat, whittled over eons by the wind. Such deep contextualism captivates Nouvel. Agbar, a concrete structure, further alludes to Gaudí in the panels of red and blue glass in its outer skin, which recall the broken colored tiles of Modernismo decoration. In contrast to the Barcelona tower, Doha employs an intricate aluminum mesh sunscreen that, like the Institut du Monde Arabe, is inspired by the moucharabieh. In Barcelona the main challenge was baffling the wind; in Doha it was to deflect the sun. But in the end, both are phallic forms (inspired in the case of Doha by a dome, not a catenary curve) with gaudy sheaths — representing what Gehry refers to as “a French aestheticism, and it’s not only Jean, that gets disco-ish with colors and lights and mirrors.”
The tour sans fins was much more restrained. Unfortunately, it was never constructed. The real estate slump of the early ’90s doomed the project. And with its demise, Nouvel’s firm, which had expanded to complete the tower, collapsed into bankruptcy. “There were a lot of people and not so many invoices,” Pelissié, Nouvel’s partner, told me. “In this period there were 150 people for a billing of five million euros. Now we have 175 people for a billing of 30 million euros.”
Nouvel, speaking about the firm’s demise, told me: “That was a very hard period for me. I was not in a very confident position. I had a partner working with me who never told me we were in trouble, and in three months we were done.” After the firm was reconstituted in 1994, Nouvel remained a salaried employee for a decade, while he repaid his personal debts and taxes. He now owns half the firm.
Nouvel can be very nonchalant about finances. “I’ve never met anybody who cares less about money,” says his friend Gilbert Brownstone, who helped bail Nouvel out during the bankruptcy. “He loves Italian food and great wine. As long as he has that, he can’t be bothered.” But Brownstone has resolved to find Nouvel a personal accountant, and Pelissié told me, “I think now Jean has to earn money for his life and his family.” Nouvel has been married twice, and had a long relationship as well with the mother of his two sons, who today are a 28-year-old mathematician and computer expert and a 26-year-old video maker and set designer. With his second wife, Nouvel had a daughter, now 13, who suffered brain damage during birth; although she eventually did learn to talk and walk, she will require assistance all her life. “The brain is a strange thing, but she can never become completely normal,” Nouvel said. “She cannot retain attention. She likes to play with a computer, but she cannot write. She takes very interesting photographs, so I hope she will be a very special photographer.”
An ardent nightclubber in his younger days (he met Brownstone when they were regulars at the upstairs bar at Les Bains Douches in Paris), Nouvel no longer stays out all night. For two years he has been living with Mia Hagg, a beautiful 37-year-old Swedish architect who worked for him, then for five years for Herzog & de Meuron and now has her own practice. “She has made him much happier than he has been in a long time,” Brownstone told me.
On the day he led a tour for the Greek delegation (who would announce the next month that they were selecting Renzo Piano), Nouvel held a lunchtime meeting in a stylish bistro with four colleagues, to discuss his preliminary ideas for a competition to build a large hotel project in Las Vegas. Nouvel’s was one of four architecture firms invited to submit a design concept in late February for this joint venture between the MGM Mirage company and the South African resort tycoon Sol Kerzner. It is a huge undertaking, with about seven million square feet of space. In addition to the functional requirements (parking, casino, hotel rooms), Kerzner specified a gigantic aquarium, which he has made a trademark feature of his leisure destinations.
After the waiter took the orders for the three-course lunch and the bottles of red and white wine, the younger men waited to see what the boss had come up with.
“I don’t care about neighbors,” Nouvel began. “There is contextual architecture, but in Las Vegas. . . .” His voice trailed off. As his junior colleagues well knew, Las Vegas is a consummate postmodern pastiche — the apotheosis of what Nouvel’s late friend, the post-Structuralist theorist Jean Baudrillard, referred to as the simulacrum. Walking down the Strip in Las Vegas, you will encounter ersatz reproductions of New York, Paris, Venice, ancient Egypt and ancient Rome. If there is any context to Las Vegas, it is one of spectacular inauthenticity.
Having developed his ideas for the Las Vegas competition while traveling over the Christmas holidays, Nouvel was meeting for the first time with the project team. He prefers to dream up his concepts away from the office: either in bed in the mornings or, even better, in the South of France during the summer, when he heads to St. Paul de Vence, a village near Nice, to swim, to incubate his ideas in tranquility and to meet periodically with colleagues or clients who fly down. “He is a really hard worker, but he has a way to organize people with his life,” says his friend Patrick Seguin, who owns a leading Paris gallery of mid-20th-century furniture. “Probably half his business is done around the table. If he works 14 hours a day, it is seven hours at the table.”
Over lunch in Paris, the team of architects passed around reference photographs: of aquarium fauna and flora; Monument Valley and the Canyon de Chelly in Arizona; and a variety of colorful minerals extracted from the Mojave Desert. There was also a geologic map of Nevada.
“I will keep the idea that Vegas has to talk about Vegas, and not about Brazil, Egypt, Paris,” Nouvel said. Instead of arbitrarily replicating some tourist mecca, he wanted his simulacrum to be of Las Vegas itself — or at least of Las Vegas before it became “Vegas.” The arid landscape appealed to him. He was also intrigued by the programmatic inclusion of an aquarium. “For me there is something paradoxical about the aquarium and the desert,” he told his team. “It could be poetic. I want to play with that.” He emphasized that the hotel complex must “exist in a universe of ‘wow’ objects but create a difference, a strong difference.” He envisioned a wall of towers and lower buildings that stretched for four-tenths of a mile and resembled a canyon.
“You mean it looks like Monument Valley,” said Emmanuel Blamont, the project director.
“I don’t know,” Nouvel said. “I want to see a lot of photographs of geography. For me, this project is a landscape. Not a lot of fake rocks, or a set for a Hollywood western. We have to do a big garden.” Like an 18th-century “English garden,” it would cultivate the illusion of a wild setting, except, in this case, the model would be an American desert, not an English dell. “What I like, and it exists in the Colorado Valley, is Aeolian shapes eroded by wind, and we can create a wall with an Aeolian profile,” Nouvel continued. He envisioned an entry into the complex that would descend gradually, between the rough, red-earth-colored “canyon walls” (fabricated of real stone at the lower levels); the view would end, in an exaggerated perspective, in “something very strong, maybe just a little crack, like a canyon.” And the acrylic-glass aquarium would be a quarter-mile long, descending to give the sense of “the abyss, with fishes with their own light,” while higher up, there would be dolphins, with sunlight shining through the water. “Of course, you will understand very quickly that it is artificial,” he said. “It’s like a garden in an old city. You go down with water in the middle, and you know it is artificial, but it is still a big emotion.”
SINCE THE FIRM'S RESURRECTION in 1994, business has steadily grown. In 2001, it won the commission for what became Nouvel’s first big American project, the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. Located in the mill-and-warehouse district that is the city’s historic heart, the building in its formal volumes echoes the silos nearby. Once again, Nouvel was looking for a way to connect to the particular culture of the place. “When you go to São Paulo or Tokyo, it is always the same typologies,” he told me. “I am against parachuted architecture.”
Even before the Guthrie, Nouvel was brought in on a smaller American commission: to design the SoHo project at 40 Mercer Street, which was politically sensitive. The architect helped win approval from the referees at the local community board, the landmarks-preservation commission and the city planning commission. “When I arrive, generally it’s a very delicate situation,” Nouvel told me. “If they have no problem, they don’t come to me.”
One of the developers behind 40 Mercer was Hines, which is hoping for similar success on its next-to-MoMA tower. To select an architect, Hines invited five top-drawer firms to present two schemes — “what you want to do and a reasonable one,” as Nouvel describes it. He said that he jotted off a quick sketch for the “reasonable” alternative and concentrated on the audacious entry. “It could be unreasonable if you didn’t have the brand of MoMA, but it is reasonable here,” he explained to me. But according to David Penick, a vice president at Hines, what was remarkable about Nouvel’s audacious scheme was that it was, in fact, the so-called “reasonable” one: it observed the arcane zoning restrictions for the Midtown site.
The site posed challenges. The footprint is very small; and, because of the land-acquisition costs (MoMA sold the prime parcel of real estate to Hines for $125 million), the building had to be very tall. To Nouvel this suggested a thin skyscraper that would evoke classic New York, circa 1930, without slipping into the schmaltz of historicism. Instead of drawing inspiration from such landmarks as the Chrysler Building and the Empire State Building, he perused the architectural drawings of Hugh Ferriss, whose moody renderings of New York skyscrapers at that time (some real, most of them invented) conjured an iconic Manhattan that still stirs imaginations (especially those of comic-book artists) today. Unlike the boxy high-rises that mushroomed in the ’60s near the museum, the towers envisioned three decades earlier by Ferriss taper into spires.
It made sense for Nouvel to consult Ferriss, because the artist was responding to the setbacks mandated by the 1916 New York zoning law, which even now dictates the twists and bends of Nouvel’s skyscraper. “I was fascinated by his drawings of the ‘needle city,”’ Nouvel recalled. “I thought in this neighborhood of rectangular buildings, a needle would make sense.” Nouvel says that he views himself as a contextual architect. “Contextuality is to give additional value to what is around you,” he says. “I researched the rhythm. When I placed the building to be like the other ones, it was stupid. If you go up and the other ones are lower, that is what I call the rhythm of the city.” Architects are the most practical of artists. Nouvel came up with a scheme that fulfilled his aesthetic ambitions, satisfied the developer’s need to build high (twice as tall as the Museum Tower) and provided a rationale that may well persuade the city’s planning and landmarks authorities to issue the always fiercely debated permits.
The Hines glass tower will house hotel rooms, condo apartments and additional museum exhibition space. (The commission does not include the design of the galleries; MoMA, which retains ownership of them, will determine that configuration once the building plans are set.) For the architect, who likes to refer to himself as an illusionist, the trick here is make everything disappear except the heavy trusses that brace the building externally. Standing inside an apartment, you should feel as though you are on a construction site, with nothing but steel beams separating you from the throbbing, glamorous city. It requires the most up-to-date engineering to accomplish, but at the end of all the research lies a very simple concept — a paean to the skyward thrust and power of New York. “I like to play with the story of the city,” Nouvel told me. Having carefully studied the text, he is ready to write his own chapter.

Copyright 2008 (http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyright.html) The New York Times Company (http://www.nytco.com/)

[Alonzo-ny]

Holy crap! This is the reasonable one!!

[scumonkey]

From the New York Observer:


MoMA Tower, a Prime Focus of Pritzker Winner Nouvel, Will Have Hearing Tomorrow

by Eliot Brown (http://www.observer.com/2007/author/eliot-brown) | April 7, 2008 | Tags:
Real Estate (http://www.observer.com/realestate)
Jean Nouvel (http://www.observer.com/term/33512)
Landmarks Preservaton Commission (http://www.observer.com/term/30152)
pritzker prize (http://www.observer.com/term/52023)
The Museum of Modern Art (http://www.observer.com/term/27767)
http://observer.cast.advomatic.com/files/imagecache/vertical/files/MoMA_1.jpg
Jean Nouvel, the newly minted winner of architecture’s Pritzker Prize, will likely face some criticism of his planned 75-story apartment tower (http://www.53w53.com/) (rendering right) next to the Museum of Modern Art tomorrow afternoon, as the development proposal goes before the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission (http://www.nyc.gov/html/lpc/html/home/home.shtml) for a hearing.
Surrounding residents have criticized the tower (http://www.observer.com/2008/residents-rail-against-current-moma-skyscraper-plans) for its out-of-scale height, and the local community board recommended against the development last month. Though in a twist uncommon to not-in-my-backyard battles, architectural enthusiasts, troubled by the community board vote, have tried to rally support (http://www.observer.com/2008/community-board-votes-against-moma-tower-development-enthusiascounter-petition) for the tower, at least in cyberspace (http://wirednewyork.com/forum/showthread.php?t=17405) (we’ll see if they show up to the hearing tomorrow).
The Times did a profile (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/06/magazine/06nouvel.html) of Mr. Nouvel yesterday and quoted his business partner as saying the French architect was focusing his energy on the MoMA tower.
An excerpt from the story (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/06/magazine/06nouvel.html):
The twisting, angular MoMA tower, says Nouvel’s business partner, Michel Pelissié, is “the most important project for him now.” Nouvel was so eager to land the deal that he urged Pelissié not to negotiate too hard on fees with the developer.
Nouvel’s next-to-MoMA scheme looks like no other high-rise in the city, but he told me, “It is a kind of archetype of what can be a skyscraper in New York.” He sees the existing architecture of a city as a record of how previous builders responded to the unique geographical and historical conditions of that place; therefore he argues that rigorous analysis, not dumb replication, is the way to design a new structure that is truly contextual. “Every architecture is an opportunity to create what I call the missing pieces of the puzzle,” he explained. “To find how you can create more poetry with the place where you are and the program you have. You research what will be the most emotional, the most perfect, the most natural.” The purpose of all the thinking, he says, is to arrive at a result that makes gut sense.

[Jeffreyny]

From the New York Times, April 9


Planned Tower Near MoMA Widely Criticized at Hearing

Published: April 9, 2008

Neighbors, public officials and preservationists were among the people who spoke out on Tuesday night against a proposal to build a skyscraper in Midtown that, at 1,155 feet, would be about 100 feet taller than the Chrysler Building.

At a hearing held by the Landmarks Preservation Commission, some opponents said the height and composition of the building would prevent it from harmoniously fitting into its surroundings. Others said they feared that the tower would reduce the access to light and air in the neighborhood and contribute to street and sidewalk congestion.

The building, known as Tower Verre, was designed by the award-winning French architect Jean Nouvel. It would rise at 53 West 53rd Street and include gallery space for the Museum of Modern Art. Its construction would involve the transfer of air rights from St. Thomas Episcopal Church, on Fifth Avenue at 53rd Street, and the University Club, at 1 West 54th Street.

The project requires the approval of the landmarks commission because both the church, a French Gothic structure, and the club, designed by McKim, Mead & White, are landmarks. A month ago, Community Board 5, which represents the area, voted to urge the commission to reject the transfer of air rights and block the construction of what the board called an “eccentric asymmetrical tower.”

The structure would be 75 stories high and resemble a narrow, partly transparent spire crisscrossed by metal girders with steep setbacks pitched at different angles. In addition to museum space, it would include apartments and a hotel. Mr. Nouvel, who won the 2008 Pritzker Architecture Prize, told the commissioners that he had designed the building to complement its surroundings and to stand out as a dynamic work that would “create a kind of signal you can read in the skyline.”

But State Senator Liz Krueger, in a statement that was entered into the record, said the tower “would be grossly out of scale with the other buildings in the area” and would “overwhelm the area’s infrastructure and services.”

The proposal involves the transfer of about 275,000 square feet of air rights from St. Thomas Church and an additional 136,000 square feet from the University Club. Representatives from both said the sale of the air rights would finance the upkeep of their buildings.

About 100 people attended the hearing, held at the preservation commission’s downtown offices, and about 50 signed up to speak. By the time that half of them had spoken, the tally was leaning heavily against the project.

Michael Vann, an architecture student at Pratt Institute, called the tower “a celebration of ingenuity, imagination, creativity, originality and vision.”

But a few minutes later, Chris McNally, a construction manager who lives on West 54th Street, described it as “a sharp spire stabbed into the heart of the neighborhood.”

A spokeswoman for the landmarks commission, Lisi de Bourbon, said the commissioners would consider the application and announce a decision at a future public meeting.

If they approve the transfer of the air rights, the matter will be referred to the Department of City Planning for approval. The project does not require permission from the City Council, but it can be blocked by council members.

[Tectonic]

These complains are some of the Most rediculous excuses I have ever heard. In Midtown? In Midtown?!!! A 'neighborhood' in Midtown!!!!! They make it sound like this is out in suburban Kansas. OMG!
Although, something tells me that Kansas city would love to have a tower like this.

[Jeffreyny]

These complains are some of the Most rediculous excuses I have ever heard. In Midtown? In Midtown?!!! A 'neighborhood' in Midtown!!!!! They make it sound like this is out in suburban Kansas. OMG!
Although, something tells me that Kansas city would love to have a tower like this.

You've got that right.
God forbid we build a skyscraper in midtown!

[tmac9wr]

It doesn't make sense to me. These people live in the middle of the largest and densest skyscraper cluster on the planet...how can they be protesting a work of art such as this? There are skyscrapers on every block surrounding the site. Since when did 1 block qualify as a "low-rise neighborhood"? It boggles the mind.

P.S. Look in the rendering!! There is a skyscraper literally right next to the site! This is insanity!

[MidtownGuy]

I wish I could have gone to the hearing to speak in favor of this masterpiece design.
It really is unbelievable, these nuts want to block such a magnificent project! Why do they live in midtown???
This was particularly idiotic:


But State Senator Liz Krueger, in a statement that was entered into the record, said the tower “would be grossly out of scale with the other buildings in the area”

Figure that one out!
She is the senator for my district, I should organize against her in the next election.

This is our chance for a totally wicked tower, I hope these numbskulls don't screw it up.:eek::eek:

[lofter1]

Don't forget that much of the blockfront of W.54th directly to the north of the Nouvel tower (low-rise apartments / townhouses) was put forth as a special district a number of years ago. The plan addressed the low-rise nature of W.54 and a ocuple of blocks to the north -- and how they should be maintained / protected. While report in support of that plan were issued to the City (expressing how / why the area should receive protections) the plan was never fully voted on.

So ... The folks who live in that little zone on W.54 are concerned about height which would be moved from one side of their immediate neighborhood to the another (air rights owned by someone else, but in essence controlled by the City via various agencies / regulations). Therefore they do have some legal leg to stand on.

I think we who read up on things here have a far better understanding of both the process and how this tower would sit within the immediate neighborhood if built on that site than do many in the area. I think we also better understand that what could now be built as-of-right on the Nouvel / Hines site might & could be far worse in terms of bulkiness -- and the effect of such a bulky mass of 40-50 stories would have on the low-rise buildings in the area. A tower as-of-right would become yet another piece of that dreary mid-town plateau.

If one rejects the transfer of air rights then one would be choosing to live with an inevitable bulky-massed plateau.

[Jeffreyny]

Don't forget that much of the blockfront of W.54th directly to the north of the Nouvel tower (low-rise apartments / townhouses) was put forth as a special district a number of years ago. The plan addressed the low-rise nature of W.54 and a ocuple of blocks to the north -- and how they should be maintained / protected. While report in support of that plan were issued to the City (expressing how / why the area should receive protections) the plan was never fully voted on.

So ... The folks who live in that little zone on W.54 are concerned about height which would be moved from one side of their immediate neighborhood to the another (air rights owned by someone else, but in essence controlled by the City via various agencies / regulations). Therefore they do have some legal leg to stand on.

I think we who read up on things here have a far better understanding of both the process and how this tower would sit within the immediate neighborhood if built on that site than do many in the area. I think we also better understand that what could now be built as-of-right on the Nouvel / Hines site might & could be far worse in terms of bulkiness -- and the effect of such a bulky mass of 40-50 stories would have on the low-rise buildings in the area. A tower as-of-right would become yet another piece of that dreary mid-town plateau.

If one rejects the transfer of air rights then one would be choosing to live with an inevitable bulky-massed plateau.

Interesting to know about this zone of 54th St. You are infact correct in that there are some historic townhomes on that street and it makes some of their comments "slightly" less idiotic but you're also VERY correct in that if we dont get the Nouvel masterpiece we will most definitely get another bulky building adding to the boring midtown plateau!

[Peteynyc1]

^^ They should donate the building site to McSam only if he promises to build the ugliest building yet, just to piss them off.

[lofter1]

NY TIMES article on the restoration of St. Thomas' stained glass windows and the money
for the project from TRANSFER / SALE of AIR RIGHTS to Tower Verre HERE (http://www.wirednewyork.com/forum/showpost.php?p=225446&postcount=190)

[ablarc]

I think we who read up on things here have a far better understanding of ... the process and how this tower would sit within the immediate neighborhood ...
The burdens of knowledge and understanding...

Well, maybe beauty is after all just in the beholder' eye...

[Alonzo-ny]

http://nymag.com/arts/architecture/features/46191/

Where a 75-Story Tower Blends Right In


The “contextualists” have it all wrong: Jean Nouvel’s beast is exactly what 53rd Street needs



Why is it so much easier in New York to erect a dreary tower than a marvelous one? Hundreds of great gray glass blobs and mouse-colored moneymakers have gone up all over Manhattan in recent years with barely a shrug of protest. The conspiracy of ugliness has no opposition. Yet Jean Nouvel’s spectacular, soul-strengthening design for a 75-story tower on West 53rd Street has gotten some neighbors high on parochial outrage. The community board urged that the proposal be rejected, and the crowd at a recent Landmarks Preservation Committee meeting reacted as if the architect had floated a plan to dump nuclear waste in Central Park. Such attacks may represent the opinions of a few malcontents with afternoon sunlight to protect, but the shrillest voices can have a disproportionate effect on a proposal, and this project’s specialness makes it vulnerable.



Nouvel’s design for a condo and hotel resting on three floors of new galleries for the Museum of Modern Art is an ecstatic reproach to Manhattan’s regularity. It would be to the skyline what Broadway is to the street grid: an indispensable violation and a zagging flourish. This is no prim modernist shaft; as with Norman Foster’s Hearst Tower, the structural supports push to the exterior, forming an eccentric exoskeleton. The Hearst building revels in rigor, wrapping itself in diamond shapes that could extend another eight floors without loosening its logic. Nouvel’s tower, by contrast, narrows, slopes, and twists, reaching for one particular point in the sky. Its athletic, muscular contortions recall Daniel Libeskind’s original concept for a 1,776-foot skyscraper at ground zero that would echo the Statue of Liberty’s raised arm. No other high-rise in New York reaches its pinnacle with such kinetic precision.



Opponents complain that a 75-story building next door to the Museum of Modern Art would violate the area’s integrity, which is not only a preposterous objection in midtown but also a constipated sense of context. Yes, 53 West 53rd will needle up from a side street, where very tall buildings are usually unwelcome. Yes, it will obscure views, cut light, strain sewers, and crowd subway lines and sidewalks. So have a zillion other new structures that aspire to nothing. Let’s be honest: What would fit uncontroversially into the gap on West 53rd Street is something stubbier, squarer, and blander.



The phrase “out of scale,” which is invoked to block tall buildings in low-rise areas, means one thing in the West Village and quite another here. To walk through midtown is to dwell at a subaqueous level, at the base of glass-and-steel reeds rising toward the sun. The tallest-seeming tower is usually the closest, dwarfing loftier ones farther away. An accurate sense of scale in midtown depends on not actually being in midtown. The magic of the Empire State Building is best appreciated from miles away, where the eye can savor how proudly out of scale it is. This is an argument not for green-lighting every megatower but for acknowledging that the city has yet to reach its full height, and that to try to stop its growth spurts would be as hobbling as binding a child’s feet. Nouvel’s future landmark gets its height via air rights from two extant ones, St. Thomas Episcopal Church and the University Club, which is why Landmarks has a say. Yet preservation is about guiding the future more than it is about gripping the past, and it makes no sense to quash this plan in the expectation of a duller, more modest alternative.



In many ways, Nouvel’s design is in fact craftily contextual. Wrapping around the American Folk Art Museum by Tod Williams and Billie Tsien to join Yoshio Taniguchi’s expanded MoMA, the tower would complete a suite of early-21st-century designs, giving the block a period integrity that the future will want to protect. MoMA itself has gradually evolved on its way down 53rd Street, from the pearly 1939 building by Goodwin and Stone to Philip Johnson’s small black wing, César Pelli’s Museum Tower, and now Taniguchi’s connective tissue. Believe it or not, the museum wants to expand again, and the new building would enclose its galleries in a rattan of huge tilting columns and skewed beams. The structure becomes a street-level conversation with the museum’s previous incarnations. The sense of being at once enclosed and exposed intensifies on upper floors, with great glass walls slashed by startling trusses.



This is not MoMA’s project: The museum has sold the lot to the developer, Hines. But its 2004 exhibit “Tall Buildings” did implicitly argue for Nouvel’s brand of provocation. In that global anthology of radical height, the skyscraper took the form of a corkscrew, a pagoda, and a giant pretzel, leaving New Yorkers wondering why their city had surrendered its claim to galloping architectural fantasy. With this plan, Nouvel brings it back. Please, let it be built.

[brianac]

A plea from the heart. I love it.

[lofter1]

The author should be acknowledged:

Where a 75-Story Tower Blends Right In

>>> By Justin Davidson
And gotta love his phrase:



... a constipated sense of context .

[Alonzo-ny]

Can I suggest some kind of merging of the two MOMA threads? It should stay sticky but the two threads seem to overlap each other now?

[ZippyTheChimp]

There's bound to be some overlap in the two threads; but if you merge them, important information (meeting dates, contact info, etc) are going to be buried.

The "petition thread" needs to remain separate. We'll direct general discussion posts to this thread.

[MidtownGuy]

Hopefully some of the powers-that-be will read that article and be persuaded.

[londonlawyer]

GREAT NEWS from the May 13, 2008 Realdeal.net:

LPC approves Nouvel's MoMa tower

Nouvel's MoMa tower
A skyscraper planned next to the Museum of Modern Art and designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Jean Nouvel passed a big obstacle today. The Landmark Preservation Commission approved the transfer of development rights from two landmarked buildings on Fifth Avenue, the University Club and St. Thomas Church. The commission also ruled that the Nouvel tower would have no effect on either the club or the church. The proposed 75-story hotel-condo at 53 West 53rd Street now moves to the city's land-review process. Neighborhood residents have expressed concern about the height of the tower, which would reach higher than the Chrysler Building. TR

[MidtownGuy]

Woo Hoo! One step closer...

[Peteynyc1]

Was this the biggest challange?

[GVNY]

Wonderful!

This structure should be erected.

[ramvid01]

Whoa.

This is huge news that merits a celebration. Although it still has to be approved by the city's land review board I do believe this was the harder hurdle to pass.

[Alonzo-ny]

Booyaa!

[NoyokA]

Honestly when I saw this thread revived after weeks of inactivity, my heart was pounding as I was expecting the worst. I was relieved to see that a fringe group of fanatical nimby’s hell-bent on maintaining the status-quo had no effect on the Landmark Commision who saw and voted on what was so blatantly obvious to everyone else, by transferring the air-rights from neighboring landmarks they are in turn creating a new landmark for the 21st century.

Someone remind me what stage in the process are we at now? And who must we write to next?

[antinimby]

City Planning is up next.

[Scraperfannyc]

Thats right, this is NYC baby. And it will maintain itself to be the great city it is by doing at least two of the things that it does best, that is, build the best buildings designed by the best architects, and attracting the best chefs to open the best new restaurants. Could you imagine what would happen to the NYC dining scene if they did not allow any great new restaurants to come in?

[GreenwichBoy]

Posted: Tuesday, 13 May 2008 8:01PM

Landmarks Panel OKs Plan for Tower Near MoMA

NEW YORK (AP) -- Pritzker Prize-winning architect Jean Nouvel came a step closer Tuesday to building a 75-story skyscraper next to the Museum of Modern Art.

The city Landmarks Preservation Commission voted 7-0 to approve two applications that clear the way for the French architect's midtown Manhattan tower, which would include condominiums, hotel rooms and MoMA gallery space.

The tower ultimately needs approval from the city planning commission, said landmarks commission spokeswoman Lisi de Bourbon.

As part of Tuesday's vote, commissioners supported the transfer of development rights from two individual Fifth Avenue landmarks -- the University Club and St. Thomas Church -- to a site more than 500 feet away near Sixth Avenue.

Because the project will affect the landmark buildings, developer Hines Interests needed special permits from the landmarks commission. Hines representatives did not immediately return a telephone call after the vote.
De Bourbon said some of the money from the sale of the development rights will be used to restore and maintain the church and club.

Residents have opposed the skyscraper because of its massive scale.
Nouvel's hypermodern buildings have been acclaimed for their eclectic nature and departure from tradition. He won the Pritzker Architecture Prize, the field's top honor, in March.

[Stroika]

YES WE CAN.

This is a greatly appreciated piece of news. I was sure the city would hang itself by its toenails and give this building the heave-ho. Consider my faith restored.

Does anyone know how likely it is that the City Planning Commission will approve it? Is it worth staying on edge and writing half-crazed letters to all manner of city bureaucrats about the virtues of the project?

[Ebola]

:eek: Some people DO have brains!!!

[NoyokA]

Well this is excellent news indeed. I am so glad and proud of the LPC for not allowing a group of selfish losers from standing in the way of our City's proud and continuing heritage.

Here's an old email one of these nut-jobs sent me. Why I was cc'd I'll never know.

Begin forwarded message:

RITASUE I READ IT . IT WAS GENERATED BY A PROFESSOR AT BARUCH. I WILL EMAIL HIM. IT IS EASY TO LET PEOPLE FROM THE WORLD TO RESPOND TO A SOUND BITE. "NOUVEL" IS A SOUND BITE. WHAT IS THE DISCUSSION ENSUiNG? . HAVE THEY REALLY SEEN ALL THE DETAILED DRAWINGS OR VISITED THE SITE ? I WILL ASK ANDREW WHO GENERATED THIS. HIS RESPONSE TO US, AND CC YOU ALL. I AM FOR GREAT ARCHITECTURE AS EVERYONE KNOWS. SOME OF US LIVE IN GREAT ARCHITECTURE AT A COST. THE QUESTION IS ARE THEY DAMNING ALL THE BANKS ON EVERY AVENUE CORNER, RED, BLUE AND GREEN AND DUANE READ AND EVERY OTHER CORNER.
TO LANDMARKS AND CITY PLANNING?

LET US ALL EMAIL THE GENERATOR OF THIS. AND SEND OUR TESTIMONY THAT MAY BE PERTINENT AND INFORMATIVE. INVITE THEM TO A WALK AROUND THE NEIGHBORHOOD. AND WHERE DO THEY LIVE????THOSE WHO SIGNED.? DO THEY KNOW WHY THE ADDRESS IS WEST 53RD AND NOT WEST 54 WHICH IS MORE LOGICAL FOR A RESIDENTIAL BUILDING? THE STREET IS AS IMPORTANT AS THE TOP TO ALL THE NEW YORKERS AND TOURISTS WHO WALK AROUND THE CITY WITH DELIGHT . WE ARE NOT FLYING AROUND NEW YORK OR EVEN DRIVING BY IN CARS. WE WALK AND DESERVE BETTER ON THE URBAN STREETS OF OUR CITY.

WE FEEL NOUVEL, THE PRITZKER WINNER, IS BEING USED BY MOMA/HINES TO PUT AN OVERLY SCALED BUILDING MIDBLOCK THAT SHOULD BE ON THE AVENUE. AND WHERE DOES ALL THE GARBAGE GO. ???? THAT IS THE QUESTION. HAVE THEY PROTESTED THE PEDESTRIAN PEI BUILDING ON WEST 56TH STREET THAT REPLACES 4 SIGNIFICANT TURN OF THE CENTURY BUILDINGS THAT LEND DIVERSITY OF DESIGN TO THE CITY? WHO IS ANDEW STERN????

[Alonzo-ny]

Ha ha thats a good one!

[NoyokA]

Its funny. If she read these forums she would see that we actively protest the very same points that she made, Banks and Duane Reades on every other corner, and the destruction of landmark worhy buildings. Problem for her is this building will have a lobby for a seven star hotel, a world class restaurant and lounge, and exhibition space for the Museum of Modern Art, and the building is replacing a parking lot. Nouvel is being used? Hines like anyother developer is going to build to the maximum allowable square footage by law, who would she rather have designing the building, Gene Kaufmann?

[Alonzo-ny]

Did she actually write it all in capitals?

[RandySavage]

What a welcome piece of news this is.

[JCMAN320]

YES!!! Awesome. Lets keep this going and have this bad boy built.

[Chrysler New Yorker]

Don't start jumping for joy yet, this scrapy still needs to pass the city planning commission... If built this building will be along side the Chicago Spire and London Shard in terms of aesthetics.

[antinimby]

You are absolutely right. We are not out of danger yet.

City Planning is just as tough if not tougher to get through simply because they are now examining the issues that the CB brought up: midblock, light, air, traffic, etc.

City Planning can do one of three things:

1) Approve
2) Approve but with modifications
3) Disapprove

Of course we are hoping for 1 but we are equally screwed if it's 3 or even 2.

[ItstheBeat]

Any news on this??? This is by far my most anticipated proposal. When does this go before the city planning commission?

[ZippyTheChimp]

It's not on the calendar. Just have to keep checking.

This thread (http://www.wirednewyork.com/forum/showthread.php?t=17405&page=16) is tracking it.

[GordonGecko]

Back on topic, the MOMA spire is an awesome structure and should absolutely be approved. I really hope they can get this done

[meesalikeu]

yeah for sure it needs to be built. it's the only new potential tower that really has me excited about it.

it's strange that whenever i read a stray blurb it's always stated in a tone as though it's a done deal and is going to be built. i'm confused! :confused:

i guess my question to anyone is -- what in your opinion are the chances it will be built? better than 50-50?

[joe25]

Why is NYC so slow at building stuff, is it just the volume ratio of buldings in development evens out? Or land is too compact and expensive, or what, it seems like its been out of the game for a while, this spire would put it back in, IMO.

Or the same bureaucratic red tape that's holding the WTC back?

[ablarc]

Or the same bureaucratic red tape that's holding the WTC back?
There's no escaping its tentacles. I'm involved in several projects to rebuild parts of New Orleans. You'd think there'd be some urgency, but the bureaucracy is just as bad as ever (maybe worse).

[NYC4Life]

unfortunately there will be more rebuilding in New Orleans as Hurricane Gustav approaches.

[londonlawyer]

Why is NYC so slow at building stuff, is it just the volume ratio of buldings in development evens out? Or land is too compact and expensive, or what, it seems like its been out of the game for a while, this spire would put it back in, IMO.

Or the same bureaucratic red tape that's holding the WTC back?

The residents of many cities, like New York and London, staunchly oppose new projects, particularly if they're tall. By contrast, most US cities (e.g., Chicago, Houston, etc.) favor such development.

[lofter1]

What is Houston building that would be consider "tall"?

[scumonkey]

this is best they got (from wik)
The tallest building in Houston is the 75-story (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storey) JPMorgan Chase Tower (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JPMorgan_Chase_Tower_%28Houston%29), which rises 1,002 feet (305 m) in downtown (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downtown_Houston) Houston and was completed in 1982.[1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_in_Houston#cite_note-JP_emp-0) It also stands as the tallest building in the state (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._state) of Texas and the 11th-tallest building (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_in_the_United_States) in the United States.

(I was surprised...but it's still butt ugly)!
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e7/Houston_Cityscape.jpg/1000px-Houston_Cityscape.jpg

[lofter1]

So, OK, they're building tall in Houston.

Or I should say they WERE building tall back in 1982 -- 16 years ago :cool:

But now?

Hard to have oppostion to nothing.

[londonlawyer]

What is Houston building that would be consider "tall"?

I didn't say that Houston is building any super tall buildings. I said they're pro-development and would welcome such towers.

[antinimby]

Back onto this project...does anyone think the economic downturn and the increasing difficulty in finding financing that is plaguing so many developers, might jeopardize this project, even if the NIMBYs fail to do so?

[Alonzo-ny]

Hopefully some forward thinking financiers can see that by the time this is built and along with its superior quality it should sell out.

[stache]

1982 was 26 years ago - ;)

[D. Velop]

this is best they got (from wik)
The tallest building in Houston is the 75-story (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storey) JPMorgan Chase Tower (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JPMorgan_Chase_Tower_%28Houston%29), which rises 1,002 feet (305 m) in downtown (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downtown_Houston) Houston and was completed in 1982.[1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_in_Houston#cite_note-JP_emp-0) It also stands as the tallest building in the state (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._state) of Texas and the 11th-tallest building (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_in_the_United_States) in the United States.

(I was surprised...but it's still butt ugly)!
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e7/Houston_Cityscape.jpg/1000px-Houston_Cityscape.jpg

I been to Houston - And it is Butt Ugly (with the exception of the area around Rice and the Menil). Even Dallas is more interesting!

[lofter1]

1982 was 26 years ago - ;)

:o :o :o

Proof that they're even LESS au courant in the oil smear of Texas.

[stache]

Uh huh... *nudge nudge* :p

[antinimby]

Hopefully some forward thinking financiers can see that by the time this is built and along with its superior quality it should sell out.One thing this project's got going for it, is that it doesn't have that many units to try to sell and they're all very ultra high end, which is always immune to fluctuations in the economy.

That plus part of it is also luxury hotel, which usually does well in this city.

[Alonzo-ny]

Exactly, I cant imagine an investor on the planet who wouldnt want his name associated with this project. Nevermind all the money it will make.

[TREPYE]

One thing this project's got going for it, is that it doesn't have that many units to try to sell and they're all very ultra high end...



Oh, you mean like 80 South Street?

Far, very far from a done deal....

[Alonzo-ny]

Not even close to being comparable projects.

[aliendroid]

I been to Houston - And it is Butt Ugly (with the exception of the area around Rice and the Menil). Even Dallas is more interesting!

I met a guy from Houston when I was a kid (where I grew up) who visited New York several times, and because I was so interested in New York at the time I asked him how it was. He said it was, ugly, filthy, full of trash in the streets and trash bags on the sidwalks, people were very rude, huge rats in abundance and homeless all over the place. After getting to know New York I don't see it like that. I think New York is beautiful, full of culture, nice parks, walkable, energy efficient and the people aren't really that rude if you understand the culture.

[195Broadway]

That was the old NYC. In many ways it got better, but some good things were lost in the transition.

This thread: http://www.wirednewyork.com/forum/showthread.php?t=18373 really opened my eyes to the things that were lost.
Good reading.

Steven

[James Kovata]

unfortunately there will be more rebuilding in New Orleans as Hurricane Gustav approaches.

Thankfully, we pulled through just fine.

[lofter1]

JK: Long time no see -- welcome back!

And glad things weren't a huge nightmare down your way.

[James Kovata]

Thanks! My house lost a few shingles, but other than a messy yard and no power, we're fine. We're "hoteling it" until the power is restored. I've been reading the board a lot, but have been an observer. Nice to know someone remembered me!

Back on topic: This is one building that MUST be built. It is stunning, absolutely stunning, a building that is truly crystalline (unlike, to a large degree, BoA). I know one vote took place in connection with transfer of air rights, but I have seen nothing else. How much further through the administrative morass must this project go before it is "a go"?

[pianoman11686]

Hopefully some forward thinking financiers can see that by the time this is built and along with its superior quality it should sell out.

For this project in particular, I think I recall reading that the developer had already secured financing, and apart from that, was more conservative than the industry in that area. In general, though, the above is rarely used as justification to extend borrowing to a developer. Highrise construction is capital intensive and is often short-term financed, which is why there's such an emphasis on pre-selling and obtaining contracts in order to pay for operating costs.

[Alonzo-ny]

It just needs to get the necessary approvals then I guess. Otherwise its should be a flawless project.

[Sherpa]

So, OK, they're building tall in Houston.

Or I should say they WERE building tall back in 1982 -- 16 years ago :cool:

But now?

Hard to have oppostion to nothing.

16 years ago??

[NYC4Life]

Maybe it seemed not that long ago.

[antinimby]

Excerpt from the Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/arts/design/21ouro.html):


It Was Fun Till the Money Ran Out


By NICOLAI OUROUSSOFF
Published: December 19, 2008

Now that high-end bubble has popped, and it is unlikely to return anytime soon. Jean Nouvel’s 75-story residential tower adjoining the Museum of Modern Art has been delayed indefinitely. And developers now seem loath to undertake similar projects. Even if the economy turns around, the public’s tolerance for outsize architectural statements that serve the rich and self-absorbed has already been pretty much exhausted.

This is not all good news. A lot of wonderful architecture is being thrown out with the bad. Although most of Mr. Nouvel’s MoMA tower would have been devoted to luxury apartments, for instance, it would have allowed the museum next door to expand its gallery space significantly. It would also have been one of the most spectacular additions to the Manhattan skyline since the Chrysler Building.

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

[antinimby]

I should have known it was too good to be true that this jaw-droppingly beautiful tower would actually come to fruition in this god-forsaken city.

But hey, we can at least find solace in knowing that these will go up for certain, right?



http://curbed.com/uploads/2008_12_370CanalCL2.JPG

http://www.pbase.com/image/77304566.jpg

http://www.pbase.com/image/77304517.jpg

http://www.pbase.com/image/77288429.jpg

http://www.pbase.com/image/77288427.jpg


God, this city is going to hell.

[scumonkey]

...and skipping the hand basket!

[NoyokA]

I was afraid to open this thread. I entirely expected this in this economy and there still is the opportunity this will be built when the economy rebounds, unfortunately that won't be for awhile.

[BrooklynLove]

Good news is that there is no crushing need to unload or develop this spot so hopefully we'll see this beaut at some point. Good things come to those who wait and this thing is beyond good.

[antinimby]

Guys, help me out a little (my brain is not working at the moment).

Have there been any projects in the past that was put on the shelf for a long time (say 3-8 years) and was brought back with little changes made?

Off the top of my head, I can't think of any.

[NoyokA]

The Marriott Hotel in Times Square. It was proposed in 1972 and finally completed in 1985 with the same design .

[BrooklynLove]

Atlantic Yards

[yankees12]

Unbelievable.

Hopefully this one gets revived - it looked like it was going to get approved and everything too. Had to be something to go wrong... nothing can get built in this city anymore, it seems.

[Alonzo-ny]

Atlantic Yards

Not built.

[TREPYE]

F--k. I should have known it. :rolleyes::mad:

Simply for the reason that this building like many other things we encounter in life fell into that all to common creed that so aptly defines its outcome: Too good to be true.

[BrooklynLove]

Not built.

Yet. Ratner takes his time - nothing unusual. Biggest difference with AY is amount of attention.

[NYC4Life]

Perhaps, the most spectacular proposal for the city vanishes into thin air. I totally agree with antinimby, this city is indeed going to hell. Too many good projects being delayed or cancelled altogether, while many historical buildings are being destroyed or converted into crap. :mad:

[Alonzo-ny]

The dream that is New York is hanging on by a thread.

[NYC4Life]

That thread at the moment, may not be as strong as a spider's web.

[lofter1]

Appropriately gloomy spirits for the darkest day of the year :cool: .

From here on out the sun shines longer ...

[Jasonik]

http://www.irvinehousingblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/bubble-psychology.jpg http://www.thecityreview.com/nouvel8.jpg

[NYC4Life]

While the propolsal itself is not entirely cancelled, it should be noted just how long we'll have to wait before any further news arises. :rolleyes:

[BrooklynLove]

By the way, Jasonik's chart is a close match to the 6 year S&P chart. I hate to jinx it but we really seem to have found a trading range - and hopefully the next move is up - but when?

[195Broadway]

If you are a young, finantially disciplined first time home buyer, this is your year to buy those shades...... The future is bright.

[Derek2k3]

Guys, help me out a little (my brain is not working at the moment).

Have there been any projects in the past that was put on the shelf for a long time (say 3-8 years) and was brought back with little changes made?

Off the top of my head, I can't think of any.

Times Square Plaza was designed in 2000 with minor changes that have only made it better.

For this site, since the developer was chosen (at least partially) through a design competition, good design is probably contingent to the site.

[antinimby]

Yes, TSP is the best example given so far, thanks.

There is no other tower I want to see built more than this one. If they could build this one as it is designed by Nouvel, I will be happy as a clam and will be forever grateful and promise not to complain about anything else. :)

[kz1000ps]

Cesar Pelli's Federal Courthouse in Brooklyn is another example.

[antinimby]

God, I hope that is true. There is no other proposal I want to see built more than this one.

[Alonzo-ny]

Which article is being referred to?

[londonlawyer]

According to people very close to the project the New York Times article was a misprint of a misquote. Hines was referring only to the state of financing in general, they have every intention of continuing with the approval process and once completed securing financing and building this project.

Good reporting, Stern!

This is good news.

I found it difficult to believe that this landmark would be dead.

NY needs more high-end hotel space, and mega-luxury apartments will always be in demand during good times in world cities like Paris, NY and London.

[lofter1]

Dare we hope?

MOMA TOWER GROWS BY SEVEN STORIES

The Real Deal (http://ny.therealdeal.com/articles/museum-of-modern-art-tower-grows-by-seven-stories-jean-nouvel)
May 19, 2009 12:00PM
By Adam Pincus

Developers of a Jean Nouvel-designed skyscraper adjacent to the Museum of Modern Art have applied to build a tower seven stories taller than the proposal they originally unveiled two years ago.

The willowy design for the tower at 53 West 53rd Street the developer announced in the fall of 2007 was 75 stories tall, but the one included in a recent filing with the city Department of City Planning and described on the developer's Web site is 82 stories high.

The building has been controversial, with Community Board 5 criticizing its height and bulk in a resolution in March 2008, calling it an "eccentric, asymmetrical tower."

The mixed-use project from Houston-based international developer Hines Interests will have 100 hotel rooms and 120 condominium units on the upper floors, and also include a 60,000-square-foot expansion of MoMa's galleries on the second to the fifth floors, the Hines Web site says. The number of hotel and condo rooms did not change since 2007, but the amount of space for the museum grew from 50,000 in 2007 to 60,000 in the latest description provided by Hines.

Although Hines unveiled the design in 2007, the firm made its first application under the Department of City Planning's uniform land use review procedure, or ULURP, on May 12, city records show. The company is seeking a special permit to transfer 136,000 square feet from the landmarked University Club at 1 West 54th Street to the development site, a city official said in an e-mail.

The developer is also seeking a special permit to waive requirements on height, setback, rear yard and pedestrian circulation through the application, the official said.

The ULUPR application is expected to be discussed by the land use committee of Community Board 5 and the entire board in June, the board’s district manager, Wally Rubin, said.

Hines did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

© 2009 The Real Deal

[TREPYE]

I reeeaally hope that that does not mean that it is also a design change.

[MidtownGuy]

In my eyes, if this one magnificent tower gets built it will be enough to balance out all the other disappointments.

[fioco]

While I am happy for your eyes and optimistic about this tower, I can not share your satisfaction. Whenever I will be within view of the lamentable, poorly designed recent projects in the city, my eyes will be assaulted.

[JSsocal]

On SSP "NYguy" posted some new diagrams of the building. The design appears to be the same. :), but it also still says 1,250 feet the same as the original, so I guess I'm a little confused :confused:

[lofter1]

I reeeaally hope that that does not mean that it is also a design change.

HINES website (http://www.hines.com/property/detail.aspx?id=2082) still shows a design that looks like the original.


In 2007, Hines announced the selection of Paris-based architect Jean Nouvel as the designer for Hines’ new mixed-use building in midtown Manhattan, adjacent to The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). The building will rise 82 stories ... The proposed building’s unique silhouette tapers as it rises to a distinctive spire. Its steel and glass façade reveals the structural diagrid.

Sounds like the original, too. But 7 stories taller. Better. Great, in fact.

[lofter1]

DOB lists the site as 46 - 50 West 54th (http://a810-bisweb.nyc.gov/bisweb/PropertyProfileOverviewServlet?bin=1034535&requestid=9&restore=1).

No New Buildings Apps there, as of yet.

The CPC Scoping Statement [pdf] (http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/pdf/env_review/53_west_53/53_west_53_scoping_notice.pdf) from November 2008 for the Hines / W 53rd project states:


53 West 53rd Street
CEQR No. 09DCP004M
Public Scoping Notice

The proposed actions would facilitate a proposal by the applicant to construct a 1,250 foot tall mixed-use building of 786,562 gross square feet that would contain 718,465 gsf of space that would be divided between hotel and residential use and approximately 68,097 gsf of museum-related space. The hotel use would occupy between 100,000 and 200,000 gsf of space and would include approximately 7,000 gsf of restaurant space. The residential use would occupy between 518,465 and 618,465 gsf of space. It is anticipated that the project sponsor would construct no more than 150 residential units and 100 hotel rooms; however, for the purposes of environmental review, a reasonable worst case development scenario will be analyzed based on total of 300 residential units and 167 hotel rooms. The building would have a tapered shape, and it is expected that the building would be clad with glass and aluminum mullions.

The latest news states that the most recent submission by Hines to CPC expands the square footage designated for the MoMA expansion by 10,000 sf, which could explain the need for greater overall number of floors from 75 > 82 -- and which would, very likely, lead to an ultimate height beyond the previously reported 1250'.

[MidtownGuy]

While I am happy for your eyes and optimistic about this tower, I can not share your satisfaction. Whenever I will be within view of the lamentable, poorly designed recent projects in the city, my eyes will be assaulted.
http://www.wirednewyork.com/forum/images/buttons/quote.gif (http://www.wirednewyork.com/forum/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=284494)
You misunderstood me. I wasn't referring to ugly stuff already built. By "disappointments" I meant exciting projects that have been recently canceled and made me disappointed.
Obviously nothing could balance out dozens of ugly realized projects. They aren't disappointments, they're what you said, an assault on the eyes. ;) We know a McSam will get built and be every bit as ugly as the first renders.

[econ_tim]

http://www.pbase.com/nyguy/image/112697115/original.jpg

this picture was posted on skyscrapercity, supposedly it is from the developer's presentation to the city

[Alonzo-ny]

This is the only real 'New York' building Ive ever seen proposed since Travelstead. It will be a travesty if it doesnt. Id even say 'NY' is over if it doesnt, if it cant even build a tower that fits perfectly.

[fioco]

Thanks for the clarification. This tower brings far more pluses than minuses. I wish the NIMBYs would be as persistent in the defence of the beautiful midtown townhouses that are disappearing before our eyes.

[kz1000ps]

If they can't get this built, then I'll have to declare New York impotent... it can't get it up! Chicago's been on a tear this decade putting up tall stuff, and all NYC's gotten for notable skyscrapers is a couple of big (but not terribly tall) corporate towers. (note: I'm not including the WTC in my argument.. the circumstances are wholly unique).

If this were built, it could almost make up for the shortcomings elsewhere.

[lbjefferies]

I wish the NIMBYs would be as persistent in the defence of the beautiful midtown townhouses that are disappearing before our eyes.

/\ That's what is most frustrating. Where are these fools when they propose tearing down the Drake, or the wonderful townhouses around the corner on 57th st? Yet for what will surely be a landmark building in a sea of skyscrapers--over an empty lot, no less--they will fight tooth and nail. it boggles the mind. They obviously have time and energy on their hands, so why do they have to use it in the most idotic way possible. It's like Superman using his powers to mine coal.


As for the news, it is obviously very exciting. I can't wait for the extra exhibition space and i hope MOMA uses it wisely. How about a permanant display of F-111? I also hope the web of steel beams isn't flush with the glass. I think the effect would be better if they were raised. My favorite images were the models without any glass at all.

[NoyokA]

This is the only real 'New York' building Ive ever seen proposed since Travelstead. It will be a travesty if it doesnt. Id even say 'NY' is over if it doesnt, if it cant even build a tower that fits perfectly.

Maybe over as a "Skyscraper City". To say its over as a "City" is just silly.

[lbjefferies]

Chicago's been on a tear this decade putting up tall stuff,.


Chicago built one supertall in the last 40 years and it is not terribly attractive. Let's be secure enough to not devolve into the height obsessed cult at SSP. Quality (NYTimes) over quantity (Trump Chicago).

[lbjefferies]

Id even say 'NY' is over if it doesnt,



Oh God.

[Alonzo-ny]

Maybe over as a "Skyscraper City". To say its over as a "City" is just silly.


I didnt quite say that. Im referring more to the spirit of the city. Buildings/ construction are the biggest symbol of a cities worth and its ability to get things done. In that department NYC is third rate. It took me a long time to accept that considering how much I love the city. It will always be a great city but its riding on the coattails of its past more and more. Like all great cities it needs to improve and re-invent itself, its just not doing that. Or if it is its re-inventing itself into something weaker.

[MidtownGuy]

^I agree

[kz1000ps]

Chicago built one supertall in the last 40 years and it is not terribly attractive. Let's be secure enough to not devolve into the height obsessed cult at SSP. Quality (NYTimes) over quantity (Trump Chicago).

I don't care about supertalls.. in this case what I'm thinking about is how many skyscrapers going up break the skyline plateau, and in that category Chicago by far trumps NYC. And even then, I think Chicago has a much higher quality-over-quantity ratio (Aqua, Hyatt Center, One Museum Park West, ect.) than NYC.

Point is I'd like something to come along and definitively break the Midtown plateau and redefine the skyline. BOA is a start, but it's not a game-changer.

[londonlawyer]

I didnt quite say that. Im referring more to the spirit of the city. Buildings/ construction are the biggest symbol of a cities worth and its ability to get things done. In that department NYC is third rate....

We are often too hard on our city when it comes to architecture. Other great cities don't always build the gems that we assume that they do. Consider this piece of garbage rising in a prime location in my beloved, the City of London.

http://www.skyscrapernews.com/images/pics/4964StBotolphsHouse_pic1.jpg

The Heron tower basically is a box with a mast. It has a nice facade, but it's no Swiss Re or Shard.

http://www.willfox.com/images/skyscrapers/heron/4.jpg

The planned tower at 100 Bishopsgate is downright ugly.
http://www.skyscrapernews.com/images/pics/713NewLondonSkyscraperFor100Bishopsgate_pic1.jpg

London's most prominent cluster, Canary Wharf, is hardly groundbreaking. Rather, it consists of banal, utilitarian boxes.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/17/Canary-wharf-one.jpg


Moreover, Chicago has had a proliferation of lame boxes as office buildings in the past five years that pale in comparison to the Hearst, the NYT, B of A, etc.

http://www.greenbeanchicago.com/wp-content/uploads/1-s-dearborn.jpg
http://www.chicagoarchitecture.info/CAI/Images/200803/353NorthClark-a00.jpg
http://chicagoarchitecturetoday.com/Images/155_N_Wacker.jpg
http://www.chicagoarchitecture.info/CAI/Images/TheLoop/111SouthWacker-001.jpg
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_8cjyAcLyCO4/SZsA8jtUKEI/AAAAAAAAAQU/lIrDvPiFJ_o/s400/IMG_0728.JPG

In addition, while Shanghai and Dubai are building some great towers, most of what rises there is mierda.

We have many gems rising or that will rise soon (e.g., MoMA, Extell's 57th Street sites, Beekman, the Kolhaas tower on 22nd Street, the Herzog & DeMuron tower, etc.)

I, like everyone else, wants a masterpiece built on every site, as was basically the case prior to WWII. However, cities around the world these days simply don't do that.

[NYatKNIGHT]

As far as skyscraper news for New York lately, this is refreshingly good. I'll take it when I can get it.

Cool shot from the lake in Central Park, econ_tim. Nearly every time I'm there I picture this tower taking its place on the skyline, with fingers crossed....

[Alonzo-ny]

You are right the other cities NY is compared to do also build bland buildings but London for example does not destroy its good buildings only to be replaced by the aforementioned mierda.

[londonlawyer]

I agreed with that point, my esteemed friend.

The problem in NY -- in terms of razing nice structures -- is that developers here are greedy, repugnant swine (e.g., Rosen, Macklowe, Zuckerman, Solow, Moinian, etc.) who seek nothing but lining their reprehensible pockets with blood money. In London, corporate developers, like British Land, are more likely to answer to the public (and to Prince Charles). Therefore, they raze lame structures and build on those sites.

That being said, I was shocked to hear that a beautiful, pre-war building at 117 Fenchurch might be razed and replaced with a lame groundscraper.

[Alonzo-ny]

Really? Do you pics of what is replacing it?

[londonlawyer]

117 Fenchurch Street

http://www.moveandstay.com/picture_apartments_main/9648_main.jpg