Results tagged “architecture”

While most subway stations rely on sidewalk grates for fresh air, the new stops on the long-awaited Second Avenue line will be cooled with a modern ventilation system. But residents and politicians say the ventilation system, which will be housed in permanent above-ground structures, "many as large as midsize apartment buildings, rising up to nine stories tall," will turn vibrant Upper East Side blocks into "dead corners," blighting the neighborhood and lowering property values, according to the Real Deal.

The city has stopped a developer from completing a large rooftop addition in Carroll Gardens — but that doesn't mean it has any way to force the builder to remove the two stories of steel girders he has already erected.

The slightly less epic version of what was once dubbed the MoMA Monster, now standing at just 1,050 feet, was approved by the City Council today in a 44-3 vote. Curbed reports that "this was the last hurdle in the public land-use approval process made necessary by Tower Verre's desired zoning variances and air-rights deals." Last we checked there was word that developer Hines and architect Jean Nouvel may just leave that lot empty for a while so the NIMBYs can savor their precious view.

The recently decapitated MoMA monster, which would have measured in at 1,250 feet (the height of the Empire State Building), has been surrounded with controversy from day one. Midtown NIMBYs didn't want a skyscraper going up in Manhattan, and they eventually got 200 feet taken off the tower so that it wouldn't impact the skyline. Sigh.

       

If you've ever lived in an older building in New York, you've probably wondered what was behind your walls (a secret room, perhaps!). Or maybe that's just us. Anyway, the Tenement Museum is readying their visitors center, and has just posted up some gorgeous photos of the process. When they renovated their 97 Orchard space, there was more in-depth archeological research done; the selective demolition at 103 Orchard Street includes the basement, ground, and second floors of the building — which dates back to the 1880s. Click through for some hot shots of ceiling timbers! Phantom staircases! Old playing cards! And much, much more.

Travel + Leisure takes a look at the World's Ugliest Buildings, and somehow no New York structures made the list. Not even the Verizon Building. Though the New York magazine architecture critic may have an explanation; he tells them: “The ugliest buildings are the anonymous ones. Even if an experimental, high-profile building doesn’t quite deliver, at least the architect is trying something. A boring building is a warehouse in the middle of New Jersey.”

The MoMA Monster has officially been decapitated. The City Council's Land Use Committee approved (by a 12-2 vote) the City Planning Commission's height reduction of the building earlier today. Now the Jean Nouvel designed Monster Hines Tower set to be raised next to MoMA, will drop down from the iconic height of 1,250-feet, to 1,050-feet. That's 200 feet below the Empire State Building, and the exact height of the Chrysler Building.

Howard Roark scoffs. A giant skyscraper, dubbed the MoMA Monster, keeps shrinking. Set to go up in the empty lot next to the museum, creators of the proposed 1,250 feet tower continue to fight a cut of 200 feet; WCBS reports that at a city council committee meeting yesterday, the real estate developer and the architect "saw their plans for a soaring Midtown skyscraper crumbling."

Attention architecture porn aficionados: Open House New York is back for their 7th annual weekend event, which will give you the key to places you normally wouldn't be allowed to enter. This will all go down on October 10th and 11th, with 350 tours, talks and programs in all five boroughs. Renee Schacht, executive director of OHNY, says "This year, we are thrilled to feature private residences, historic landmarks, architect and artist studios, and new sites that demonstrate sustainable design.”

Developer Bruce Ratner must be relieved this morning to see that big bad Nicholas Ouroussoff at Times does not revile the latest renderings for the Nets arena planned for Brooklyn. You'll recall that Ouroussoff dissed the last designs as "a monstrosity" and "a shameful betrayal of the public trust, one that should enrage all those who care about this city." But bringing young New York firm SHoP on board may be just the lipstick on the boondoggle Ratner needs; Ouroussoff, who had embraced Gehry's vision for the project, calls this new look "somewhat more promising."

       

This week's episode of Mad Men looked at the 4th (and current) incarnation of Madison Square Garden (opened February 14th, 1968) at 7th Avenue between 31st and 33rd Streets. The MSG men wanted the Don Draper treatment to spin their campaign and gain public approval for, you know, tearing down the street level portion of Pennsylvania Station; a beautiful Beaux-Arts structure that perfectly backdropped many long farewells during WWII.

Today's not a good day for Bank of America. In the Wall Street Journal, there was a report saying CEO Ken Lewis told investors that BoA will "shrink the company's 6,100-branch network by about 10%, a pullback from the two-decade expansion that took the bank from coast to coast. The driving force for the closings is changing customer preferences...as online and mobile banking take transactions away from traditional branches," according to sources.

      

The Guggenheim sent out a press release yesterday the size of The Fountainhead describing their upcoming Frank Lloyd Wright: From Within Outward exhibition (opening in May and running through August). In celebration of the building's 50 year anniversary the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation has helped them piece together the installation, which will present 64 projects designed by Wright, all displayed on the spiral ramps of the museum he designed. The CEO of the foundation says that, "Rather than a retrospective, this exhibition focuses on the diversity of Wright's vision and the ways he sought to realize it...The concept of the exhibition also reflects a growing recognition of the enormous relevance today of Frank Lloyd Wright's design philosophies, which embrace culture, technology and environment." Sad fact: Wright actually died six months prior to the grand opening of the Guggenheim.

           

The Lieb House took a trip up the East River this morning, en route to its new home on Long Island. Architecture nerds, curious early risers, news crews, the new home owners, and architects Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown were all on hand to witness the journey, which began in New Jersey. The NY Times even talked to a woman who took residence there for two summers in the 1970s. It's difficult to track down any interior shots of the 1,500-square-footer, but one onlooker today told us Venturi created a home for his mother as well, which he said was filled with very ornate detail.

A small piece of architectural history will float down the East River this Friday the 13th. Robert Venturi's 1969 Lieb House was nearly demolished until a plan to relocate it from New Jersey to Long Island came through. Now the move to Glen Cove is being celebrated with drawings, photographs, movies, and interviews, as well as a celebratory sail past the Seaport. The Storefront for Art and Architecture says "to gather at South Street Seaport to watch Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown's Lieb House carried via barge under the Brooklyn Bridge and on into Long Island Sound. The passage of the house and the assembled onlookers will be filmed by 13 cameras, including a heli-cam, to become part of Jim Venturi's documentary Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown." In the early 70s Mrs. Lieb told the NY Times, "It's a real dumb house, just a box, but it's gorgeous." [via Brooklyn Heights Blog]

       

After nearly two years of renovations, the first phase of Lincoln Center's overall transformation is ready: A completely re-energized Alice Tully Hall is getting to set to open once again this weekend. Diller Scofidio + Renfro, in association with FX Fowle, designed the re-imagined space, which houses both Alice Tully Hall and the Juilliard School and was originally a boxy, concrete Brutalist structure by architect Pietro Belluschi. Now, there's a three-story high, glass-enclosed lobby (with cafe) that peers onto Broadway and lets Broadway look inside as well. And over a sunken outdoor plaza—complete with mini-amphitheater seating—is Juilliard's cantilevered extension.

PS 1 announced the winners of their annual contest that allows amateur architects the opportunity to transform the entrance to the Long Island City museum throughout their summer of weekly dance parties held in its courtyard. Winners Hilary Sample and Michael Meredith's of Brooklyn almost didn't make it down to the judging Monday because their proposal, called "afterparty," wouldn't even fit in their car. The title of the piece seemed appropriate because MoMA architecture curator Barry Bergdoll says all entries responded to the current climate with the thinking of, "How do we still create a fun party space when clearly the economic party is over?” The Times says that the winning piece, finished in the wee hours of of Sunday night, was created by a team that describes themselves as “a collective of designers, architects, thinkers and state-of-the-art weirdos.” Last year an urban farm sprung up at the space.

Architect Daniel Libeskind is taking a cue from the urban gardening minds and "has unveiled a proposal for his first New York building: a glass tower dripping with sky gardens." NY Mag reports that his vision for One Madison Avenue would surpass the 700-foot Met Life tower in height, and that "Initial designs show a glass-curtained tube with cutaways spiraling up and around the façade to reveal segments of terraced verdure, like cultivated patches on the side of a steep alpine slope." How poetic. Libeskind says that the gardens are balconies and that the design will make it "as if nature has come back into the city.” As Curbed notes, "very expensive and exclusive nature."

British architecture firm Foster + Partners has been selected to renovate the New York Public Library's Fifth Avenue Beaux-Arts building. Norman Foster, who married new with old at the British Museum in London and the Hearst Tower in NYC, told the NY Times, "It's the greatest project ever."

       

The prefab housing has arrived and been constructed at MoMA for their Home Delivery exhibit (opening on the 20th and running through October 20th). The exhibit examines the factory-produced architecture which has been a part of our landscape since 1833; five full-scale residences have been installed in the museum's 54th Street lot, while the 6th floor exhibit delves into the prefab's timeline. Prepare for residential envy! Here are some photos of the construction (the NY Times also has a slideshow)...with the grand unveiling coming next week.

Some Queens residents are getting touchy about sprouting McMansions in their borough. Many believe it's being transformed into the worst of suburbia: Huge ostentatious homes plunked onto undersized lots that don't conform to the neighborhood's aesthetics.

       

Lost City visits one of the odder buildings in the East Village today, located at 62 E. 4th Street. Currently two of the five floors house the Duo Theater, but the top three levels have gone unused for nearly 40 years. Built in 1889, the current crumbling facade isn't the biggest mystery -- the architecture is. LC notes:

There's all sort of Italianate grandeur in the shapes and lines. But it's all thrown off by the bizarre, frontal, cylindrical metal fire escape, enclosed by a tubular metal grill. The top floor included a boarded-up space of what looks like a door. But to where? There's no balcony. And what was the intention of the column-framed open forum on the fourth floor?

Over the past few weeks, the Museum of Arts and Design has revealed its update for 2 Columbus Circle.

      

The Brooklyn Museum's Steinberg Family Sculpture Garden features an array of salvaged sculpture that managed to triumph over the wrecking ball. The preserved work on view points back through time to sculpture's architectural prominence before the advent of Modernism, when it was as bountiful on building facades as in museums.

Beyond the significance of individual works, the collection as a whole demonstrates the Museum's agile response to the destruction of architectural treasures even before the historic preservation movement reached its stride in the late 1960s. As public appreciation of architectural ornament and sculpture has grown, the Museum's collection has served not only as an archive of historic objects, but also as a welcoming outdoor installation beloved by visitors.

Even though New York City has around 98 monikers, did you know that there is no official city nickname?

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."

Plans to construct a glass addition to the top of the Battery Maritime Building moved a little closer to fruition this week with the approval of Community Board 1. The New York Post reports that the Board was a little concerned about the scale of the glass addition that will be added to the century-old structure, but that something productive had to be done with the building to ensure its continued existence. Plans by the Dermot Company include the installation of a 140-room boutique hotel, a restaurant, a lounge, and a specialty foods marketplace.

EVENT: Angels and Kings is hosting a Nerd Nite, described as: "the Discovery Channel with beer." This evening brings zombies to life, sort of, with a presentation on the undead titled "Zombies Are Real: Actual Zombies of the Natural World And Why You Might Be One." Drink, learn, be nerdy.

The fate of the Moynihan Station in the James Farley post office building remains up in the air and it's unclear whether Madison Square Garden will also relocate to the Farley building. If MSG moves, plans say the old MSG would be razed and a new train tracks would be put on top. The Municipal Arts Society's New Penn Station campaign shares a plan from students (at Columbia's Graduate School of Architecture's Historic Preservation Program) offering a different idea.

Today Lego celebrates the big 5-0, even getting some Google-love for hitting the half century mark.