Are These NYC's 10 Great Buildings to See?

Buildings, clockwise from upper left corner: Prada Store Soho, American Museum of Natural History's Rose Center, Hearst Building, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Morgan Library expansion, Apple Store Soho, Conde Nast Building, and Seagram Building; in the center, Grand Central Terminal interior and the Chrysler Building

The Chrysler Building. The Seagram Building. The Apple Store Soho? The Center for Architecture's executive director Rick Bell made a list of 10 great buildings to see in New York City (presumably for tourists) and spoke to the AP about it. The list spans two boroughs, a classic skyscraper, a beloved transportation hub, and retail stores, and some landmarks are deliberately left off (like the Empire State Building which everyone knows about):

Conde Nast Building, for its "environmentally correct" design by Fox & Fowle.
Brooklyn Museum, for the modern entry pavilion and plaza, designed by James Polshek, against its Beaux Arts facade; the AP writes the addition makes makes the museum "inviting and accessible, a suitable centerpiece for Brooklyn's burgeoning hipster art scene."
Prada New York in Soho, designed by Rem Koolhaas, for the way it "displays the merchandise, it doesn't sell it."
Rose Center for Earth and Space at the American Museum of Natural History, designed by James Polshek.

Apple Store Soho, designed by Ronnette Riley and Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, with Apple's creative team, for putting the high-teching gadgeteria in an old post office.
Grand Central Terminal, designed by Reed & Stern and Warren & Wetmore and restored by Beyer, Blinder & Belle.
Morgan Library Expansion, designed by Renzo Piano, for his modern addition linked to the 1906 mansion-turned-library.
Chrysler Building, designed by William Van Alen. "Bell thinks it should be" as well known as the Empire State Building.
Hearst Tower, designed by Sir Norman Foster, for the "diagonal gridwork and see-through glass panels, with no vertical supporting columns."
Seagram Building, deigned by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Philip Johnson (design architects) and Kahn & Jacobs (associate architects); Bell says, "It was this building that transformed our skyline.

What do you think of the list?

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By Jen Chung in News on February 21, 2008 1:35 PM

Comments [rss]

rh

Flatiron!

Bouncing Soul

The most beautiful buildings in New York are the soon to be extinct apartment buildings (no more than seven floors, most renovated tenements). Go look for them while they're still here, maybe someone can get them on an endangered species list.

RIP Affordable Housing.

malasagna

How about all the buildings in Lafayette in Noho. All of them are more impressive than the Apple Store.

JGNY

Papercutninja: You can walk through the Ford Foundation Lobby. Or at least you could before 9/11.

Classicrocker: Time Warner Center? Are you kidding? That freaking thing and all it's stores belong in Houston.

Weak list however I can see why the tourists would be impressed by these:

"ah shucks, that there cirlce is floating in that there cube"

UnRed

I love the Hearst Tower. Every time an old building gets torn down I can't help but think about what could have been.

ironybubble

The Brooklyn Museum?. A much better example of an integrated two-generation façade can be found among the various NYU hospital buildings on 1st Ave. Back to the museum, though, once you pass through the entryway you wind up at a ticket kiosk looks like a gigantic upside down wire mesh Ikea trash bin.

Now that Saarinen TWA terminal that a few folks on here have mentioned... that is truly incredible.

classicrocker913

or how about Lincoln center, the MET, City College, City Hall, the AOL Time Warner Building, The San Remo Apartments, The Ansonia Hotel, and Carnegie Hall...

Papercutninja

YES. The Saarinen terminal at JFK is freaking magical.

Tim N. - The Ford Foundation people have seen my nose flattened against their windows many a time.

matty

The conde nast building looks like it was made with dubai oil money. all of the buildings in the collage, save wall street and the chrysler building are hideous.

Lrigtab

Who did that horrible collage of buildings?? What an eyesore!

Tim N.

Umm...

Lever House?

Central Bank Building on 72nd and Bway?

Woolworth Building? (is there no end to its being disrespected?)

Cunard Building?

Guggenheim?

Ford Foundation?

Greenwich Savins Bank (now an HSBC) on 14th and 6th?

I guess the thing is a Ten Best Buildings in NY would really be twenty (forty?) buildings long.

chuzzlewit

nice montage,Leonardo.

virgil

Belive it or not, one of the most incredible pieces of modern architecture in the city is the waste management facility in Greenpoint. I thought I was alone in my admiration, but here's an article from NY mag:

http://nymag.com/arts/architecture/reviews/35526/