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#1
October 13th, 2003, 08:48 PM
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InterActiveCorp HQ - 555 West 18th Street @ West Street - by Frank Gehry
October 14, 2003
CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK Ship of Glass for Chelsea Waterfront By HERBERT MUSCHAMP  Frank Gehry's design for InterActiveCorp's New York headquarters, to be built on the West Side Highway near the Chelsea Piers complex. The proud city sails on. Frank Gehry has designed a New York headquarters for Barry Diller, the media and e-commerce mogul. The new building will be opposite the Chelsea Piers sports complex, on the West Side Highway between 18th and 19th Streets. It will also be on the East Side of Bicoastal City, the dual metropolis that has emerged from the symbiotic cultural competition between Los Angeles and New York. Buda, meet Pest. Looking something like a tall ship in full sail, the nine-story glass building will house offices for Mr. Diller's InterActiveCorp, a group of Internet businesses with a focus on travel. They include Expedia, Hotels.com, Hotwire.com, Citysearch and Ticketmaster. With typical Gehryesque frankness, the design appears to reflect New York's present preoccupation with ornamental building tops. If the top is what counts, why bother with the base and shaft? Just go for the crown! Seen in this way, the low-rise Diller building evokes the grand tradition of skyscraper design epitomized by the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building and 70 Pine Street. It has all the romance of those towers, but at a more human scale, as befits the horizontal sweep of the riverfront location. The articulation of the glass facades also breaks down the bulk. From the West Side Highway, the building appears to be composed of individual modules, stacked in two tiers. Each of the modules is formed by giving a five-story rectangular solid a one-quarter twist. The edges of the rectangles become curves. Mr. Gehry has used a single example of this module once before, for an office building in Hanover, Germany. Here, he groups them together to fill the zoning envelope of allowable bulk. On the side facing the river, the elevation will resemble a row of five glass town houses, crowned with three stretch penthouses. The upper tier is set back from the lower, to allow open, rooftop terraces. The facades are nearly plumb with conventional building lines, especially along the side streets, where the walls are again broken down into smaller envelopes. Undertaken by InterActiveCorp in partnership with the Georgetown Company development firm, the building, scheduled for completion by early 2006 and with 165,000 square feet, will eventually provide quarters for about 500 employees. There will be underground parking for 70 cars. Though Mr. Diller will retain offices in Los Angeles (in a building to be remodeled by Mr. Gehry), the new building, signifies a shift in his business interests from entertainment to tourism, which has itself emerged as a leading form of entertainment in the era of globalization. Glass is the key feature in this design. Indeed, even more than Christian de Portzamparc's LVMH Tower on East 57th Street, the Gehry design could radically transform the use of glass in New York buildings. The design employs super-clear "white" glass, etched with a white pattern that helps reduce energy costs. Visually, the effect is somewhat ectoplasmic, as if to denote that more and more of us have two addresses now: one on the street, the other in cyberspace. I have my own version of the "broken windows" theory of urban decline. It's called the "cheap glass" hypothesis. Both concepts deal with the power of small causes to produce big effects. The broken-windows theory, which got great play in the Giuliani administration, states that when smashed panes aren't quickly repaired, it signals neglect and decline. Neighborhoods become targets for burglars, who beget drug dealers, prostitutes, muggers, murderers. The cheap-glass theory states that when so-called "value engineers" are hired to reduce building costs, mirror glass quickly follows. Mirror glass induces low self-esteem, depression, poor citizen morale, reduced productivity, strained personal relationships and ultimately broken windows of the soul. This is not the way to go. New York has missed out on glass. People came to associate it exclusively with International Style office towers of the postwar decades. In response to a glut of that architecture on the market, architects and clients began to look nostalgically toward pre-war masonry buildings. The glut now is of brick and cast-stone buildings that appear entirely constructed of processed cheese. Perhaps it was good to get away from glass for a while. A design like Mr. Gehry's gives the material some of the novelty it possessed early in the last century. Because of technological advances, glass should be seen as a luxury material, not as a cheap way to enclose space. Its use should be encouraged by government agencies with the power to grant financial incentives to developers. After Richard Meier's two new residential towers on Perry Street, the Diller building will be the third great piece of glass architecture to arise on the West Side Highway. The project arouses visions of a strip of first-rate contemporary design stretching alongside the new promenades of Hudson River Park. Perhaps nothing can fully compensate for the loss of the great trans-Atlantic liners that sailed off in the early 1970's. But it helps immensely to see the architectural imagination at work in a design that captures the lure of faraway places. Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company 
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#3
October 13th, 2003, 09:05 PM
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Though he would loathe the comparsion, Muschamp's prose resembles the interior of an overblown Baroque church, filled top to bottom with ornament and curlicues. There's a message in there, but you have to look past a lot of frippery to find it.
The fellow should take a step back from from all the hyper-modern architecture he's constantly overpraising and seek in his writing to emulate Mies van der Rohe. Simple, clean lines go a long way.
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#7
October 13th, 2003, 10:05 PM
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Easy. NIMBY complaints can be summarized as follows:
1) The structure is far, far too large. The building's bulk will blot out out the sun and lead to chronic health problems for both humans and Hudson waterfowl; 2) The entire neighborhood of Chelsea should be declared a "World Heritage Site" by UNESCO; 3) The several hundred new workers the building will house will dangerously overburden the city's transportation and sewer infrastructure; 4) Those same workers' craving for overpriced beverages will lead to rampant gentrification, destabilizing the neighborhood and leading to chaos that will ripple through all five boroughs; 5) The battered warehouses that would have to be razed were once visited by Edgar Allan Poe in 1845. But one of these concerns would be enough to delay the project for months, if not years. All five...foggedaboutit.
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#8
October 13th, 2003, 11:27 PM
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:lol:
Really funny, JD. You completely summed it up!
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#10
October 14th, 2003, 12:00 AM
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Perfect location for a signature building. I like to see the waterfront developing as a showcase. Hurry before Trump-like development oozes south.
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#12
October 14th, 2003, 08:50 AM
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Mmmm, Gehry desiiiiiigned sashimi :shock:
Quote:
Franky's architecture is not liked by everyone, but I like his work. However, the render of InterActiveCorp's New York HQ looks more conceptual than an actual planned structure. Needs a couple of obvious windows at least. His monumental works are often likened to ships/liners (as the article states about IAC N.Y. HQ) eg. Bilbao Guggenheim (BTW It does have windows and skylights): 
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#13
October 14th, 2003, 10:22 AM
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Could be nice. Love seeing the continued "glassification" of the West Side Highway. This will be one hell of a postcard someday.
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#15
October 14th, 2003, 12:43 PM
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http://www.iac.com/media/pdfs/IAC_HQ_release.pdf
IAC/INTERACTIVECORP HEADQUARTERS, DESIGNED BY FRANK GEHRY, TO TAKE SHAPE IN DOWNTOWN MANHATTAN NEW YORK, NEW YORK – October 14, 2003 – IAC/InterActiveCorp (NASDAQ: IACI) today announced that the Company’s new headquarters, designed by Frank Gehry, will rise in the Chelsea district of Manhattan. The IAC Building will begin construction by early 2004 and is expected to be fully completed by end of year, 2006. IAC is developing the building in partnership with The Georgetown Company (TGC), a privately-held diversified real estate company based in Manhattan. Barry Diller, Chairman and CEO of IAC/InterActiveCorp, said, “As our need for space grew, we began to think it might be advantageous to create our own working environment. While much about the future is always unknown, we’re confident that InterActiveCorp is at its early growth in a business sector that is at its beginning…and we’re at a stage where it’s sensible to put down roots in a buoyant and exuberantly imaginative way. With more than 25,000 employees and 116 locations in 31 states and 20 countries, and operations spread out across Manhattan, we wanted one place where all our activities could find common ground, tailored to the particular needs of a company engaged in the cutting edges of Internet ecommerce life. Three things came together that made the decision for us. The first was being able to work with Frank Gehry, the second was finding a unique location, and the third was finding a trusted building partner in The Georgetown Company. After months of planning, we have a design for a new building we believe will not only be great to work in, but will delight all who come within sight of it, in an area of the city that is just beginning its reformation. As part of the building’s core concept there will be a ground floor public space and a restaurant that will reflect and utilize all of the IAC brands and be as interactive as we and Frank Gehry can conjure. We are very committed to growing our corporate headquarters concurrently with the growth of our many businesses, and we are pleased that New York City both affords us the opportunity to build a unique and landscape-defining edifice, and benefits from the investment IAC is making in developing a corporate presence in Chelsea.” Eminent architect Frank Gehry said, “We're really excited to be working in New York City with Barry Diller and The Georgetown Company to create the new global headquarters of InterActiveCorp. The chance to create a culturally relevant corporate presence in Chelsea is a great opportunity for all of us and we intend to do something really special.” About The Georgetown Company The Georgetown Company (TCG), founded in 1978, is a privately-held, diversified real estate company. As an owner/developer and development manager, Georgetown and its principals have developed, own, and oversee in excess of 15,000,000 square feet of office, residential, retail, and recreational properties. For more information, please visit www.georgetownco.com. About GehryPartners and Frank Gehry Gehry Partners, LLP is a full service firm with broad international experience in museum, theater, performance, academic, and commercial projects. Founded in 1962 and located in Los Angeles, California, Gehry Partners currently has a staff consisting of over 125 people. Every project undertaken by Gehry Partners is designed personally and directly by Frank Gehry. The staff of Gehry Partners includes a large number of senior architects who have extensive experience in the technical development of building systems and construction documents and who are highly qualified in the management of complex construction projects. In addition, the firm relies on the use of CATIA, a highly sophisticated 3-dimensional computer modeling program originally created for use by the aerospace industry, to thoroughly document designs and to rationalize the bidding, fabrication, and construction process. Raised in Toronto, Canada, Frank Gehry moved with his family to Los Angeles in 1947. Mr. Gehry received his Bachelor of Architecture degree from the University of Southern California in 1954, and he studied City Planning at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. In subsequent years, Mr. Gehry has built an architectural career that has spanned four decades and produced public and private buildings in America, Europe and Asia. In an article published in The New York Times in November, 1989, noted architecture critic Paul Goldberger wrote that Mr. Gehry’s “buildings are powerful essays in primal geometric form and.. . materials, and from an aesthetic standpoint they are among the most profound and brilliant works of architecture of our time.” Mr. Gehry has received more than 100 awards from the American Institute of Architects to honor outstanding architectural design. About IAC/InterActiveCorp IAC/InterActiveCorp (Nasdaq: IACI), formerly USA Interactive, consists of IAC Travel, a division of the company that encompasses Expedia, Inc., which oversees Interval International, TV Travel Shop, Hotels.com and Hotwire.com. IAC has entered into an agreement to acquire Hotwire, which is expected to close during the fourth quarter of 2003, subject to customary regulatory approvals. The other operating businesses of IAC are: HSN; Ticketmaster, which oversees Evite and ReserveAmerica; Match.com, which oversees uDate.com; Entertainment Publications; Citysearch; Precision Response Corporation; and LendingTree. The goal of IAC is to be the world's largest and most profitable interactive commerce company by pursuing a multi-brand strategy. Contacts: IAC Corporate Communications Deborah Roth, IAC Corporate Communications, 212/314.7254 Gehry Partners Keith Mendenhall, 310/482.3000
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