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ARCHITECTURE NEW YORK

New York in fact has three separately recognizable skylines: Midtown , Downtown Manhattan (also known as Lower Manhattan), and Downtown Brooklyn. The largest of these skylines is in Midtown, which is the largest central business district in the world, and also home to such notable buildings as the , the , and Rockefeller Center. The Downtown skyline comprises the third largest central business district in the United States (after Midtown and Chicago's Loop), and was once characterized by the presence of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center.

Today it is undergoing the rapid reconstruction of Lower Manhattan, and will include the new Freedom Tower, which will rise to a height of 1776 ft. when completed in 2010. The Downtown skyline will also be getting notable additions soon from such architects as Santiago Calatrava and Frank Gehry. Also, Goldman Sachs is building a 225 meter (750 feet) tall, 43 floor building across the street from the World Trade Center site.

New York City has a long history of tall buildings. It has been home to 10 buildings that have held the world's tallest fully inhabitable building title at some point in history, although half have since been demolished. The first building to bring the world's tallest title to New York was the New York World Building, in 1890. Later, was home to the world's tallest building for 75 continuous years, starting with the Building in 1899 and ending with 1 World Trade Center upon completion of the Sears Tower in 1974. One of the world's earliest , still standing in the city, is the , built in 1899.

The Downtown Brooklyn skyline is the smallest of the three New York City skylines, and is centered around a major transportation hub in Northwestern Brooklyn. The borough of Queens has also been developing its own skyline in recent years with a Citigroup office building (which is currently the tallest building in NYC outside Manhattan), and the Queens West development of several residential towers along the East River waterfront.

Notable skyscrapers

New York City has the most individual, free-standing skyscrapers in the world with 47 buildings taller than 200 meters and 3 taller than 300 meters. For comparison, Hong Kong, which has the most skyscrapers in the world[3], has 43 taller than 200 meters, 5 taller than 300 meters; and Chicago has 19 taller than 200 meters, 5 taller than 300.

World Trade Center Towers 1 and 2 were the two tallest buildings in the city before they were destroyed on September 11th, 2001.

The Empire State Building, a 102-story contemporary Art Deco style building, was designed by Shreve, Lamb and Harmon and finished in 1931. The tower takes its name from the nickname of New York State and is currently the tallest building in the city.

The Empire State Building, with the Chrysler Building behind. They are iconic New York skyscrapers. Completed in 1930, the Chrysler Building is a distinctive symbol of New York, standing 1,048 feet (319 m) high on the east side of Manhattan. Originally built for the Chrysler Corporation, the building is presently co-owned by TMW Real Estate (75%) and Tishman Speyer Properties (25%). The Chrysler Building was the first structure in the world to surpass the 1,000 foot threshold.

The GE Building is a slim Art Deco and the focal point of Rockefeller Center. At 850 ft (259 m) with 70 floors, it is the seventh tallest building in New York and the 30th tallest in the United States. Built in 1933 and originally called the RCA Building, it is one of the most famous and recognized skyscrapers in New York. The frieze above the main entrance was executed by Lee Lawrie and depicts Wisdom, along with a slogan that reads "Wisdom and Knowledge shall be the stability of thy times".

The International Style was a groundbreaking exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art that completely changed the face of architecture in New York and the world. Mies Van Der Rohe, a focus of the show, later built the Seagram Building on 5th Ave at 53rd Street. One of the most important buildings for modern architecture, the Seagram Building transformed its midtown site, the development of tall buildings, and the history of architecture. Other architects replicated details from Seagram within New York and around the world for decades following its completion in the late 1950s. The bronze extrusions attached to the mullions are exemplary of this trend in tall building design and can be seen in many cities.

The MetLife Building, formerly the Pan Am Building, was the largest commercial office building in the world when it opened on 7 March 1963. It is an important part of the Manhattan skyline and one of the fifty tallest buildings in the USA.

Time Warner Center is a mixed-use skyscraper at Columbus Circle in Midtown Manhattan. It has attracted much attention as the first major building to be completed since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and has become known to many New Yorkers as the "new twin towers." Additional publicity was generated in 2003 when David Martinez paid $45 million dollars for a penthouse condominium, a record for New York residental sales.

The Condé Nast Building, officially Four Times Square, is a modern skyscraper in Times Square in Midtown Manhattan and one of the most important examples of green design in skyscrapers in the United States. Environmentally friendly gas-fired absorption chillers, along with a high- performing insulating and shading curtain wall, ensure that the building does not need to be heated or cooled for the majority of the year. Office furniture is made with biodegradable and non-toxic materials. The air-delivery system provides 50% more fresh air than is required by New York City Building Code, and a number of recycling chutes serve the entire building. Being the first project of its size to undertake these features in construction, the building has received an award from the American Institute of Architects, as well as AIA New York State.

Residential buildings

Many residential communities of New York City express character distinct from that the skyscrapers of the commercial cores. These include brownstones rowhouses and apartment buildings which were built during the city's rapid expansion from 1870–1930. Between 1870– 1930 one might say that Stone and brick became the city's building materials of choice after the construction of wood-frame houses was limited in the aftermath of the Great Fire of 1835. Unlike Paris, which for centuries was built from its own limestone bedrock, New York has always drawn its building stone from a far-flung network of quarries and its stone buildings have a variety of textures and hues. In the days before rail, stones were floated down the Hudson River or along the Atlantic Seaboard from pits in New England. Later, trains brought marble from Vermont and granite from Minnesota. The United States Custom House, built in the early 20th century at Bowling Green, contains at least 20 varieties of stone.

Beyond the 1950s, federal housing projects dramatically changed the city's appearance. New large scale (frequently high-rise) residential complexes replaced older, frequently troubled and somtimes valuable, communities at times removing artifacts and landmarks that would now be of even greater value. During this period, many of these new projects were completed under the guise of urban renewal by the famed and powerful Robert Moses. Urban Renewal has been held in great contempt and the resulting housing projects have been considered a failure. This is partially because of lacking maintenance and inconsistent funding.

Beautiful residential buildings can be found on Fifth Avenue and Central Park West, surrounding Central Park from both sides. Riverside Park also has many respected old-money residential buildings.

Today, the stone used in Manhattan skyscrapers may come from almost anywhere: Norway, Uruguay, Belgium. The so-called Pahlavi office tower on Fifth Avenue, built by officials from the government of the deposed Shah of Iran, has stone from Finland.

ARCHITECTS

PEI

Jacobi Medical Center Phase II Modernizations Bronx, New York In progress

The construction of the new Ambulatory Care Facility constitutes Phase II of the planned consolidation and modernization of the entire Jacobi Hospital campus. The masterplan provides for the transformation of the existing campus, built in the 1950s into an efficient, state-of-the- art hospital complex. The resulting composite building will integrate new facilities with existing, placing emphasis on the horizontal continuity of medical departments. Inpatient, outpatient and diagnostic facilities will be woven together in a rigorously planned tapestry of associated uses.

The existing Jacobi campus is characterized by a sympathetic relationship between artifact and nature, with the existing white brick, multi-winged building set in an extensive landscape of mature trees. Our architectural strategy has been to extend the existing environmental qualities, incorporating in the new building a garden courtyard and a modest atrium space, curved to offer, in one glance, a view of sky and garden. The transparent outer face of the building will reflect its layered, leafy context. A public circulation spine will transfix the entire campus, cleanly integrating the new inpatient building, the original hospital building and the planned Ambulatory Care building.

The new building itself is organized with public circulation and waiting areas facing the exterior landscape. Clinical areas are tied into medical spaces in the existing structure. The architectural composition of orthogonal elements is modified by a series of subtle arcs that maintain the gestural simplicity of the scheme. The success of this project is due in large measure to the well-founded master plan and the precise briefing received from personnel with specific and in- depth knowledge of the complexities of the Hospital.

The new Ambulatory Care Facility, together with renovated medical spaces within the existing Bellevue Hospital complex, has radically transformed a venerable New York City institution into an advanced medical campus. In addition to accommodating an essential medical function, the new building serves as the main entrance for the entire hospital complex, reintroducing the architecture of the McKim, Mead and White–designed historic buildings to the experience of the 10,000 daily visitors. The primary design challenge has been the transformation of close physical proximity between existing and new buildings into a spatial and symbolic generosity. In bringing together old and new, the glazed atrium has become the emblematic heart of Bellevue.

Visitors enter beneath a sheltering overhang and, passing through transparent glass entrances, find an axial view of the original monumental entrance portal. Wide steps and ramp provide access to the granite-floored, 90-foot-high atrium space, the most striking feature of which is the powerful brick wall rising through a sloped skylight to its pedimented culmination. The conjunction of the sweeping, curved balconies of the new building and the handsome historic brickwork is celebrated in natural light.

The Ambulatory Care Building provides a full range of clinical functions. Public waiting areas are arrayed along curved gallerias on upper floors. Strategically placed reception units facilitate public interface with the different clinical modules. The division of the floor plate in three distinct zones — public, service and clinical/examination — optimizes programmatic flexibility and promotes efficiency. The completion of this ambitious project is a significant milestone in the storied history of Bellevue Hospital

Bedford-Stuyvesant Superblock

Completed 1969

Senator Robert Kennedy initiated this project to improve one of New York's worst ghettos at maximum speed and minimum cost with the least disruption to residents. In solution, a series of superblocks was proposed, relieving the monotonous urban grid by providing a variety of focal points for neighborhood activity and identity. St. Mark's Avenue and Prospect Place comprised the pilot project.

Four Seasons Hotel

Completed 1993

The Four Seasons Hotel was designed to possess a classic elegance that transcends both time and fashion. The 54-story tower occupies a through-block site in an exclusive part of midtown, and responds to local zoning codes with setbacks up to its cruciform crown. Clad in fine French Magny limestone, the tower becomes one with New York, which remains a masonry city despite its many glass skyscrapers. At night, the hotel has a unique skyline presence, as finely wrought lanterns at each setback add a festive note distinct from midtown office buildings. The design evokes the grand tradition of a former time when going to a hotel was a memorable occasion. Emphasis is not on workaday efficiency — checking in and out quickly — but on celebrating the luxury hotel experience with apartment-sized guestrooms and public interiors designed around personal service and discreet ceremony. Surrounding the grand foyer is a terraced salon-like environment that invites New Yorkers and international travelers alike to socialize over tea, drinks or light dining. Conveying an air of both grandeur and intimacy, it provides a public place to see and be seen in, a gracious stage for urban theater.

Guggenheim Pavilion, The Mount Sinai Medical Center Expansion & Modernization

Completed 1992

This 625-bed medical facility inaugurated a massive reconstruction and renovation campaign aimed at positioning Mount Sinai among the top teaching hospitals in the United States. The goal of this project was to improve access, security, ambience and circulation while consolidating facilities dispersed throughout the full medical complex. The challenge was to satisfy these goals in functional, institutional, urban and above all, human terms. Guided by the conviction that a good environment aids healing, the building was designed to participate actively in the therapeutic process. Decades of ad hoc expansion had left Mount Sinai a knot of corridors filled with undifferentiated traffic. In solution, access was improved and circulation rationalized by a new network of bridges, stairs and dedicated that horizontally and vertically separate patients from materials transport and the comings and goings of the general public. A new main entrance was created to convey a sense of arrival and also to achieve functional integration, leading to a skylit plaza and thereby connecting nearly 70% of the entire hospital complex at ground floor for the first time. Guggenheim Pavilion occupies a full city block. It rises from a rectangular base designed for easy access to a greatly enlarged emergency room, health clinics and other public services. State-of-the-art operating suites and major medical areas are located above on large (2-acre) floors that provide maximum flexibility. Patients are housed in three linked towers on the five uppermost floors, raised above city noise and bustle. The towers are angled to provide each room with an atrium or outdoor view in order to engage the patient's imagination beyond the room's edge and thereby promote a sense of wellness rather than illness.

499 Park Avenue / Park Tower

Completed 1981

This 27-story tower was undertaken to provide deluxe office facilities to tenants seeking a wide range of individualized service and a prime midtown address. The design grew directly from its narrow corner site on Park Avenue. The response is formal, vigorous, and direct. Maintaining the massing and scale of its masonry neighbors, the tower rises straight up from the sidewalk; it reinforces the street wall while establishing a unique identity as a black crystalline shaft cut, jewel-like, with light-catching facets. One such facet announces the main entrance, which angles through the building to connect with a glazed 55-foot-high atrium on 59th Street. The public passage provides an eventful shortcut in this busy part of town, relieved by natural light, plantings and a 3-part relief by Jean Dubuffet — a major work of art that delights both public and private realms. The building's service core was located in a corner of the site in order to maximize office space. The role of primary wind-resistance played by the normally symmetrical core was assumed instead by the tower's specially engineered skeletal frame. Innovative solutions were also designed for many of the building's operational and support systems, each requiring a unique response to the specific problems posed by prime accommodations on the sliver site.

88 Pine Street ( Plaza)

Completed 1973

This 32-story investment office tower, intended for an unknown and varied tenancy with diverse space requirements, was designed for maximum interior flexibility. The building program stipulated that large amounts of undivided space be provided for Wall Street brokerage houses. The solution is a loft building designed with economically placed columns and slabs; only essential components are expressed. The white aluminum cladding was selected to stand out among other, darker towers downtown, and to complement historic sailing vessels moored at Seaport. The white finish was achieved by "painting" the curtain wall with baked-on silicone-reinforced acrylic enamel, the first such large-scale application. Each 28-foot bay frames a continuous window comprising three large panes of glass butt-joined with silicone sealant. The absence of mullions preserves the building's simplicity and suggests its interior flexibility. From within, the windows offer sweeping views of the East River and the Manhattan skyline. The building was designed not as a dense commercial mass but as an airy object to be seen through. Its aim is transparency and lightness achieved by limited means and palette

Everson Museum of Art

M. Pei's building embodies the modern art of the museum: like the free-standing curving concrete stair that is a sculptural element in space, without upstaging the art in the museum. 1968

STEVEN HOLL

Pratt Institute Brooklyn, New York en the floor plates is opened at the center with panes of clear glass, allowing a view to the east court and marking an entry to the west. A two- throated skylight marks the top, striking dissonance and joining two types of light. South and north light are combined analogous to harmonious sounds in a dissonant chord. Brick from the burned section is recycled into a slumped brick and concrete base forming an entrance and viewing terrace. Rising from the burnt brick is a concrete frame supported on 6 columns spanned with concrete and sheathed with structural glass planks. An economical industrial material with translucent insulation, the planks span between floors, creating a translucent glow at night.

RAFAEL VIÑOLI

Jazz at Lincoln Center

New York, New York, 2004

Jazz at Lincoln Center is the world’s largest not-for-profit organization promoting the appreciation and understanding of jazz. The institution’s new home, Frederick P. Rose Hall, located within the Time Warner building at New York’s Columbus Circle, is the first facility designed specifically for the performance, education and broadcasting of jazz. The program, headed by Wynton Marsalis, leads in jazz performance and music education, sponsoring numerous pr ograms throughout the year. The design of this tower at 131 West 52nd

Manhattan Commercial and Residential Building

New York, New York, 1985

Street takes maximal advantage of a change in New York City’s zoning laws that provides for height and setback variances in return for reduced building footprints. Relinquished grade-level area made possible a building with much less stringent setback requirements than those that had shaped the older buildings flanking it to the east and west. The resulting layout creates residential units that extend further than the neighboring buildings toward the site boundary and thus enjoy uncommon views of both the East River and the Hudson: a major achievement given the building’s mid-block location in one of the densest areas in New York City. At ground level, the relinquished area is devoted to a glass-roofed block-through galleria, one of a number of such north-south pedestrian passageways affording alternative mid-block circulation paths in the heart of the city’s theater district.

As in the 1968 Argentine Industrial Union building in Buenos Aires, a concrete spine expressing the building’s principal structure and containing and service cores is central to the design of the Manhattan tower (subsequently renamed Flathotel). While contextually aligning the building with its neighbors to the east and west, the spine makes possible an open plan without exterior load-bearing walls; instead, a transparent curtain wall wraps around the east, south, and west façades. This expanse of glass rises out of a seven-story concrete base that contains the building’s commercial spaces and defines its entrance.

ALVAR AALTO

FINNISH PAVILION, NEW YORK 1939

This pavilion was truly a 'magic box' from a spatial point of view on the inside, whilst it remained a simple functional box on the outside." "The Exhibition is difficult to describe architecturally. It represents a synthesis of, on the one hand, typical forms and symbols existing in the Finnish landscape and, on the other, of rational considerations. Determinants in the creation of the Pavilion were the significance of Finland's northern location and the attempt to achieve a combination of horizontal and vertical effects. In order to enlarge visually the relatively small standard pavilion—the Finnish Pavilion had a skeleton consisting of a type of mass-produced scaffolding leaving only the front façades free—the development of a free architectural form was necessary." "Aalto's success in winning in 1938 the competition for the Finnish Pavilion to be built in New York for the 1939 World's Fair, following immediately on the heels of his success with the Paris Pavilion and the construction of the Villa Mairea, was his crowning achievement for the second half of the 30s." The Creator's Words: "An exhibition should be what in the early days it used to be, a general store: in which all possible objects are grouped together in a dense display—whether it be fish, cloth or cheese. Therefore in this pavilion I have attempted to provide the densest possible concentration of display, a space filled with wares, next to and above and beneath each other, agricultural and industrial products often just a few inches apart. It was no easy work— composing the individual elements into one symphony."

MIES VAN DER ROHE

SEAGRAM BUILDING

The inescapable drama of the Seagram Building in a city already dramatic with crowded skyscrapers lies in its unbroken height of bronze and dark glass juxtaposed to a granite-paved plaza below. The siting of the building on Park Avenue, an indulgence in open space unprecedented in midtown Manhattan real estate, has given that building an aura of special domain. The commercial office building in this instance has been endowed with a monumentality without equal in the civic and religious architecture of our time....The use of extruded bronze mullions and bronze spandrels together with a dark amber-tinted glass has unified the surface with color....The positioning of the Seagram Building on the site and its additive forms at the rear, which visually tie the building to adjacent structures, make for a frontal-oriented composition. The tower is no longer an isolated form. It addresses itself to the context of the city." The Creator's Words: "Skyscrapers reveal their bold structural pattern during construction. Only then does the gigantic steel web seem impressive. When the outer walls are put in place, the structural system, which is the basis of all artistic design, is hidden by a chaos of meaningless and trivial forms...Instead of trying to solve old problems with these old forms we should develop new forms from the very nature of the new problems. We can see the new structural principles most clearly when we use glass in place of the outer walls, which is feasible today since in a skeleton building these outer walls do not carry weight. The use of glass imposes new solutions."

EERO SAARINEN

TWA – 1962

Saarinen's terminal for TWA is sculpted as a symbol of flight - abstract, and not intentionally as a landing eagle as it has often been described. The expressive curves of the design create attractive, spacious halls and a rare degree of exhilaration for an airport terminal.

The period bright orange carpets are gone, and the atmosphere is a more contemporary cool with the tone set by the purple-tinted glazing, but the romance of flight is very much alive. Although the building appears to be made of sculptural concrete, the structure is in fact braced within the concrete by an invisible web of reinforcing steel - comparable to the invisible steel hammock supporting the concrete roof of Saarinen's other 1962 airport terminal building, at Washington Dulles.

...a building in which the architecture itself would express the drama and specialness and excitement of travel... a place of movement and transition... The shapes were deliberately chosen in order to emphasize an upward-soaring quality of line. We wanted an uplift.' Eero Saarinen

LE CORBUSIER, OSCAR NIEMEYER

UNITED NATIONS HEADQUARTERS, 1953

"Providing office accommodation for 3,400 employees, the Secretariat is a 39 story building with an aluminum grille to conceal equipment on the roof. The narrow end walls are of white marble; the other two elevations are surfaced with green-tinted glass. Floors devoted to mechanical equipment divide these glass facades into three parts...." "Sited by the East River, the scheme is dominated by the towering slab block of the Secretariat Building, which, with its narrow end walls rising like sheer white cliffs and it longer sides clad in glass curtain walling, has had considerable influense on subsequent high buildings throughout the world."

Le Corbusier was one of the architects appointed to plan the permanent buildings for the United Nations Headquarters in New York City. The Secretariat, a glass-sided slab which is now a distinguished part of the New York City skyline along the East River, was primarily his design. Le Corbusier's UN building is typical of the International Style.

In 1946, the United Nations were looking for a location for their new headquarters in New York. The original plan was to use the grounds of the 1939 World Fair in Flushing Meadow Park in Queens. But when a project known as X- City on Manhattan's eastern border failed to materialize, John D. Rockefeller Jr. bought the 18 acre plot and donated it to United Nations. This site was then used to build the UN's headquarters. The whole area was converted into international territory and officially does not belong to the United States.

The design for the United Nations complex was drawn by an international committee of architects, the United Nations Board of Design. The most notable of the architects were Oscar Niemeyer, Le Corbusier and Wallace K. Harrison, who headed the board. Some renowned architects including Mies van der Rohe and Walter Gropius were excluded due to their historic links with Germany, the enemy during the war.

The international style was chosen by the board members as it symbolized a new start after the second World War. A plan by Le Corbusier, known as project 23A, was taken as the basis for the complex. After many months of heated discussions, mainly between Le Curbusier and the other architects, the final plan 23W, drawn up by Oscar Niemeyer was adopted by all members of the board. It consists of a complex with 4 buildings: the Secretariat building, the General Assembly building, the Conference building and the Dag Hammarskjold Library

LIBESKIND

FREEDOM TOWER

When completed, this will be one of the most important buildings of the early 21st century. It is significant in stature, in design, in its politics, its symbolism, and for the reason it was built.

The Freedom Tower is the replacement for what was once New York's World Trade Center. In September, 2001 terrorists destroyed several of the Center's buildings, including the massive 110 -story twin towers. The stated reason for this action was to protest the United States' support of the nation of Israel and its people. The terrorist attack only served to solidify the bond between the U.S. and Israel, and caused wars in Afghanistan and elsewhere, and the toppling of the Taliban government in Afghanistan. Thousands died when the twin tower fell, and millions were emotionally and psychologically scarred.

The Freedom Tower is more than a real estate project. It is rehabilitation for those hurt by the terrorists and a way to heal the scar on a nation. Part of the healing process is new growth, which this tower represents. But it has been a painful process. The early designs were ridiculed. When the first cohesive plan came out of the pack it, too, found slews of detractors. New Yorkers are notoriously cranky people and they took aim at the design. Most had forgotten, or were too young to remember, that the original twin towers were also the subject of much vitriol for their design and expense. It was only after those towers were taken away that the city realized it had grown to love its pair of white albatrosses. But detractors stalled the project for more than a year, adopted celebrity real estate mogul Donald Trump as their mouthpiece, and embarrassed the city and the nation by allowing the United Arab Emirates to begin work on what would become the world's tallest tower while New Yorkers were busy sticking their thumbs in each other's eyes.

The current design is much less flashy than the previous one. It is something like a large sloping block with the corners carved off, so it appears that the entire building twists as it gets higher. The building's faces will be huge triangles that taper toward the top and the bottom. At the center of the building, they will form an octagon. The skyscraper is symmetrical. Asymmetry was something in the last design that set a lot of people off. Some people also don't appreciate the spire at the top. They forget that the Twin Towers had a spire, too, and the mast is necessary for communications transmitters.

The new Freedom Tower will pay homage to the twin towers in several ways. The base of the Freedom Tower will be 200 feet square -- the same dimensions as the original towers. The observation deck will be at 1,362 feet: the heigh of World Trade Center Tower Two. The glass parapet will be at 1,368 feet: the height of World Trade Center Tower One.

That square base is a safety measure, not just an engineering method. Though it will be clad in glass prisms, the 186-foot-tall base will be a windowless concrete wall, intended to absorb and deflect the blast from car or truck bombs. The glass prisms will be coated with plastic like automobile safety glass to help absorb the impact. It is hoped that the prisms will refract light into color and make the monolithic security measure an eye-leasing curiosity. The Twin Towers were targeted by Islamic terrorist truck bombs twice, once successfully in 1993, before they were destroyed by terrorists in jets in 2001. The corners of the base will taper inward, with small reflecting pools at ground level.

The Freedom tower is just one of several buildings that will be erected to compose the new World Trade Center. The design is officially known as "Memory Foundations" because it leaves room for several memorials in the 16-acre complex. One of those memorials is the slurry wall, more commonly known as "the bathtub." This structure was the basement of the World Trade Center and served to hold back the Hudson River to keep it from flooding the complex. It was here that the remains of thousands of dead were found, and hundreds more who were never found. People will be able to walk down a ramp from ground level all the way down to bedrock along the edge of this wall -- the last original remaining piece of the twin towers.

SANTIAGO CALATRAVA

World Trade Center Transportation Hub

La impronta del arquitecto español Santiago Calatrava quedará reflejada en el intercambiador en la nueva terminal de transportes del World Trade Center, escenario de los ataques terroristas del 11 de septiembre de 2001. La estructura, realizada en cristal, piedra y acero, se inaugurará dentro de dos años, y representa un pájaro siendo liberado de las manos de un niño.

La cubierta de vidrio que cubre la terminal evoca una catedral gracias a los arcos que lo forman, y se abrirá cada año en el aniversario de los ataques terroristas del 11 de septiembre. Unas alas de acero y vidrio se elevarán cerca de cincuenta metros, y la luz natural llegará hasta los andenes, situados a 18 metros bajo tierra. Situado al mismo nivel que la calle, el centro de transportes del World Trade Center está diseñado como una estructura independiente formada por materiales como el cristal, el acero, cemento y piedra. La luz es también una de sus características principales. El intercambiador se sitúa en la plaza Wedge of Light, y ha sido concebido como un espacio de quietud, una especie de pausa, entre los densos edificios que está previsto construir en ese lugar. La estructura tiene además como objetivo la creación de una sucesión de espacios verdes, que se extenderán desde Park Row y el a la Iglesia de St Paul, y desde aquí, atravesando el intercambiador del World Trade Center, al jardín del Memorial. La parte del edificio que es visible desde la calle está formado por un arco ovalado de cristal y acero, de aproximadamente 115 metros de largo, 38 de ancho y 32 metros de altura. Aunque para el diseño de la estructura exterior, Santiago Calatrava se ha guiado por muy diferentes tradiciones, como la bizantina y la egipcia, el arquitecto español dice haber querido ver en el edificio la imagen de un pájaro liberado de las manos de un niño. Esta estructura de cristal permitirá que la luz natural entre al intercambiador, llegando hasta los mismos andenes, situados aproximadamente a unos 18 metros por debajo del suelo. Por la noche, el edificio se iluminará, convirtiéndose en una especie de faro para el entorno. En los días en que la climatología lo permita, y cada 11 de septiembre, la cubierta se abrirá, hasta alcanzar una anchura máxima de 13 metros, con lo cual se podrá visualizar desde el interior del intercambiador un trozo de cielo con su correspondiente haz de luz. Este es el motivo por el que Santiago Calatrava afirma que el edificio está sustentado por “columnas de luz”.

SKIDMORE, OWINGS & MERRILL

Time Warner Center

Originally constructed as the AOL Time Warner Center, is a mixed-use skyscraper at Columbus Circle in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Its design, by David Childs and Mustafa Kemal Abadan of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, consists of two towers of 229 m (750 ft) each. Construction began in November 2000, and a topping-out ceremony was held on February 27, 2003.

The total floor area of 260,000 m² (2.8 million ft²) is divided between offices, residential condominiums, and the Mandarin Oriental hotel. Time Warner Inc. has taken office space in the lower floors below the main towers. The Shops at Columbus Circle is an upscale shopping mall on the lower level of Time Warner Center, which also includes a collection of luxury restaurants on its uppermost floor. The complex is also home to a new CNN studio (which features tours for visitors), and a 6,000 seat theater for Jazz at Lincoln Center.

Time Warner Center has attracted much attention as the first major building to be completed since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, although it was already under construction before the attacks. The building has two towers and has become known to many New Yorkers as the "new twin towers."[citation needed] Additional publicity was generated in 2003 when David Martinez paid $45 million dollars for a penthouse condo, a record for New York residential sales.

The building’s street address is officially 25 Columbus Circle, but the developers use the name “One Central Park” to promote the residential units. The address One Central Park West, meanwhile, belongs to a tower across the street owned by Donald Trump. Upon the completion of the Time Warner Center, Trump made a “little joke” at the Time Warner Center’s expense by hanging a large sign on his building gloating, “Your views aren’t so great, are they?”1

The design of Time Warner Center pays homage to the streets of New York: The curvature of the base helps frame Columbus Circle, the angle of the two towers aligns with , and the space between the towers gives the illusion that 59th Street passes through. In addition, the rectangular patterns on the glass curtain wall overlooking Columbus Circle suggest the Manhattan street grid.

SWANKE HAYDEN CONNELL & PARTNERS

TRUMP TOWER 1983

A tall residential tower, this building takes its architectural cues from the surrounding commercial district in a posh area of Manhattan located at the crossroads of Midtown and Central Park. Trump Tower is a sleek high-rise clad in dark reflective glass with setbacks beginning near of the base of the tower which lessen the impact of its bulk on the street below. Inside, the building features a multi-story shopping atrium clad in expensive stone with brass accents. A cascading waterfall directly across from the entrance forms the monumental centerpiece of the open interior. The expensive, upscale boutiques are accessed by escalators that rise dramatically through the airy space of the atrium. Intended for an exclusive, wealthy clientele, the luxurious shopping experience at the base of the building is accessible to the general public. United States of America are the paradise of tycoons. These multimillionaires think there are living examples of the American Dream ("Where there's a will, there's a way"); the minorities and the too many rejected people affirm it is an American Nightmare. Mr Donald Trump is what America can produce the worst, and there's a world between respected names like Rockefeller, Vanderbilt or Guggenheim and these dangerous sharks: culture. The skyscraper Mr Trump decided to build to his glory is in his own image, pretentious, loud and flashy. The idea of cutting a prism into vertical truncatures to deconstruct the miesan box is not a bad one, but in a more restrained sense. The setbacks treated as a cascade from the southwest corner, each tier agremented with a single shrub, are ridiculous. The visit of the lobby and the atrium is a must: gaudy, tasteless and nouveau riche at the same time.

F L WRIGHT

LARKIN BUILDING

In 1904 Wright built his first major public work, an administrative building for the Larkin Mail Order Co. of Buffalo, New York. The Larkin Building was one of two projects Wright designed that year for Darwin D. Martin, the company’s entrepreneurial owner (the other project, the Martin House, is one of Wright’s most elaborate Prairie Style designs). The Larkin embodies Wright’s vision of productive labor as a cornerstone of the social contract: its central space is filled with an almost ecclesiastical light, and ringed with inscriptions extolling the value of labor. The Larkin Building was demolished in 1950. PHILIP JOHNSON

AT&T CORPORATE HEADQUARTERS (NOW SONY PLAZA BUILDING)

This is a high-wire act, and as usual Philip Johnson is a star performer. His instinct, a familiar one, is épater le bourgeoisie: he balances calculated shock value with superlative quality. He designs with brilliance, if you equate that condition with extreme intellectual vivacity and curiosity, sophisticated historical recall and impeccable esthetic response.

When American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T) decided to construct a New York headquarters corporate towers were exclusively built on the model of the sleek glass and steel boxes of modernism. But the company wanted a strong visual identity - a monument and they chose the right architects to do that. The AT&T Building was a breakthrough design -- a large-scale office project that relied on the historic precedent of great 1920s skyscrapers and ancient architecture and was built in granite -in a word it was "post modern"-and as a result the building has become a landmark recognized worldwide. It possesses a highly identifiable top, a broken pediment that Philip Johnson states comes from his appreciation of ancient architecture, not from Chippendale furniture. The tower makes a substantial contribution to the civic floor space of the city. There is a 20,000 square feet covered plaza that is open to the public at grade, which has retail stores, kiosks, and a cafe-terrace. The tower, 90' x 200' in plan, rises 648 feet flush to the street to maintain Madison Avenue's street line. The reception "skylobby", in effect the corporate entrance, is linked by four elevator shuttles seventy-seven feet above the ground. This ingenious system of double entry splits security and reception, from the "representational" aspect of the building: its notable façade and monumental street level lobby with its cross-vaulted and gilded ceiling and monumental statute representing the Spirit of Electricity.

53RD AT THIRD ("LIPSTICK BUILDING")

When Hines began work on 53rd at Third, the red and pink granite office tower with an elliptical plan, they knew they needed something to make the project stand out. Third Avenue was not then known for premier architecture and high-end office towers. Hines and the firm determined that above all an unusual shape, particularly one where all the exterior offices became "corner" ones, would be a great way to start. The final product is one of the most unusual buildings on the New York skyline, which also happens to command very high rents.

Johnson, who can rarely help but think about history, has remarked that the oval shape and surrounding colonnade is reminiscent of Italian baroque architecture. One of the best qualities of the building is its public presence. As an oval placed in a rectangular lot, plenty of public walks space was created. The high glassed in lobby is both a spectacle to be watched from the exterior, as well as a place from which the bustling sidewalk activity in New York can be observed.

RIVERSIDE SOUTH

Comprising 1.52 million square feet of residential space, the four buildings at Riverside South represent the most significant urban planning and residential development for New York City in many years. The site for the design of the project was an abandoned railway yard on the Hudson River adjoining the . The Riverside South Planning Board administered the guidelines and governed some of the detailing, including window sizes and materials. The first completed building, (building C) consists of 486,000 gross square feet including rental units, studios and luxury three bedroom apartments. In addition, twenty percent of these 515 apartments will provide subsidized housing for qualified tenants. The intent was to create a tower grouping with scale and mass similar to the residential towers of Central Park West. All four buildings have a three-story limestone base. Completion Dates: 1998, 1999, 2002, 2003

MUSEUM OF TELEVISION AND RADIO

The Museum of Television & Radio is not a museum in the traditional sense with artifacts housed in cases or hanging on walls. It houses the sounds and images that portray the history of broadcasting. Its elegant white façade is loosely based on Brunelleschi's Pazzi chapel in Florence and fits in nicely with its neighbors on New York's 52nd Street. The Museum of Television and Radio fits a monumental building into a context of row houses and large commercial structures. The design accomplishes this by establishing strong corners to provide a contrast with neighboring buildings and by conforming to the height and scale of the row houses to the east. A type of contextualism is at work. Just below the lobby at the ground level, there is a two hundred-seat theater for audio-visual programs, discussions, and lectures. The second level contains a ninety-seat theater for seminars and other presentations. The heart of the museum, the library, is located on the fourth level, where a computerized catalog system describes the television and radio programs available. On the third and fifth levels, media consoles are located where individuals or groups view their selected material. Completion Date: 1992

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY BOBST LIBRARY

The emergence of Bobst changed the face of this University. This structure is the most compelling symbol of our dreams. Nowhere is our commitment to the creation of a great intellectual center better seen than in Bobst Library. Built between 1967 and 1972, the Elmer Holmes Bobst Library is a formidable building at New York University. As NYU lacks a traditional campus, and instead sits within the urban grid of Manhattan, the building responds to this planning difficulty by creating and defning a center to the university. The Bobst Library faces Washington Square Park, a square originally laid out in the manner of Berkeley Square in London: a park surrounded by a street and a "rim" of buildings, making a "cup" of space. Thus, the facade is designed as part of the street, identical in height to the surrounding buildings. The Longmeadow red stone facade is organized in a classical manner, albeit in a modern idiom, with a base, middle and cornice that relate to the surrounding 19th century structures, yet does not parody or copy them. Inside, the building contains a glass-walled atrium, one hundred feet square that rises the full height of the building. The University uses this dramatic atrium for ceremonies, dinners, and parties. The Library holds over three million volumes, and has automated circulation, acquisitions, and cataloguing systems. It contains an infrastructure that has accommodated the addition of new library networks, university databases, integrated information systems, a cable television station, and the Avery Fisher Center for Music and Media. Completion Date: 1972

KEVORKIAN CENTER FOR NEAR EASTERN STUDIES

Located on Washington Square in Manhattan, this four storey building is part of the Faculty of Arts and Science at New York University. The ground floor contains the lobby and classrooms, the second floor a library, and the top two floors offices. Completion Date: 1973

NEW YORK STATE THEATER LINCOLN CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS

The New York State Theater was originally designed as a theater for dance, a home for the New York City Ballet. Today it also houses the New York City Opera. Johnson, who began the design in 1959, wanted to provide an elegant auditorium based on the 18th-century European model of small opera houses. In doing so, Johnson designed extraordinary public spaces as well as a sumptuous auditorium.

The problem of scale and organization of a theatre of over 2,000 seats was solved by presenting a simple means of entry and circulation for the public. There is a procession of monumental rooms, which may explain why The New York State Theatre is so often booked for special events. The theatre is festive and glamorous.

Presently, there is an ongoing plan of varied restorations throughout the structure. This includes design upgrades for code variances such as the replacement of the existing bronze handrails, the installation of new center rails and reworking of the particular marble junctions at the stairs. In addition, the renovation of the existing restrooms is presently under construction. Completion Date: 1967

THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART ABBY ALDRICH ROCKEFELLER SCULPTURE GARDEN RESTORATION

The Abby Aldrich Rockefeller garden at The Museum of Modern Art was designed by Philip Johnson in 1953 and has been loved as an exquisite urban outdoor room ever since. In 1988, distress was noted in the wall that separated the garden from 54th Street. After some investigation, it was decided to rebuild the garden wall and perform additional repairs to the fountains, the stone paving and the steps from the museum lobby. Construction Documents were prepared for the repairs and filed with New York City Building Department and the Landmarks Department. Construction began in February of 1989 and was completed three months later, in May. Special care was taken to match the original materials used in the garden construction. Stone from a quarry that had closed in the 1960s was obtained and cut to create the steps, pavement and coping. Brick was fabricated specifically to match the original brick used for the garden wall. The fountains utilized state of the art technology to match the original design intent and return this important New York garden to its original form. Completion Date: 1953/1964/1989

TIME SCULPTURE AT LINCOLN CENTER

More a sculptured monument than a clock, the Time Sculpture is more evidence of Philip Johnson/Alan Ritchie Architects interest in manipulating geometry to create a work of art. The clock has several faces of different size, designed in part to allow pedestrians, those in vehicles, and visitors in Dante Park all to have visual access to the current time. This should be something useful, especially right before curtain time at the various venues at Lincoln Center. Working in collaboration with Michael Rock, of design studio "2 x 4", Philip Johnson developed distinct clock face graphics. The playful quality of the placement of the numerous faces is a counterpoint to the monumentality of the sculpture's overall form. Colored a soft bronze, the sculpture elegantly twists and warps. It seems far larger than it actually is. Also, it creates a focal point not only within Dante Park, but the larger intersection in which the park sits. The clock was made possible through Lincoln Center and generosity of Yaffe and Gedalio Grinberg. It is a privately funded public amenity.

BREUER

(born May 21, 1902, Pécs, Hung.-died July 1, 1981, New York, N.Y., U.S.) Hungarian-U.S. architect and furniture designer. He studied and then taught at the Bauhaus (1920–28), where in 1925 he invented the famous tubular steel chair. He moved to Cambridge, Mass., in 1937 to teach at Harvard University and practice with Walter Gropius. Their synthesis of Bauhaus internationalism with New England regional wood-frame building greatly influenced domestic architecture throughout the U.S. He was one of the most influential exponents of the International Style. His major architectural commissions include UNESCO's Paris headquarters (1953–58) and the Whitney Museum of American Art (1966).

Whitney Museum of American Art

founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney. It was an outgrowth of the Whitney Studio (1914–18), the Whitney Studio Club (1918–28), and the Whitney Studio Galleries (1928–30). Opened to the public in 1931, the museum actively supports American art through the purchase and exhibition of the work of living artists. Its extensive permanent collection contains sculpture, paintings, drawings, and prints, which are exhibited regularly. Biennial shows of works in various media provide comprehensive reviews of each year's American art. The spacious Madison Avenue building designed by Marcel Breuer to house the collection was opened in 1966.

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