8 Influential Art Deco Skyscrapers by Ralph Thomas Walker
No architect played a greater role in shaping the twentieth century Manhattan skyline than Ralph Thomas Walker, winner of the 1957 AIA Centennial Gold Medal and a man once dubbed “Architect of the Century” by the New York Times. [1] But a late-career ethics scandal involving allegations of stolen contracts by a member of his firm precipitated his retreat from the architecture establishment and his descent into relative obscurity. Only recently has his prolific career been popularly reexamined, spurred by a new monograph and a high-profile exhibit of his work at the eponymous Walker Tower in New York in 2012.
Pratt Institute to Host 2 Free Symposiums in April
Pratt Institute is presenting two architectural symposiums that are free and open to the public: “An Inventory of What’s Possible“ on April 10 and “The Language of Architecture and Trauma” on April 11, 2015. “An Inventory of What’s Possible” will focuse on the history of America’s affordable housing emerging from the research, architectural prototypes, and financing that occurred in New York, as well as the city’s future potential in response to Mayor de Blasio’s housing plan.
The second event, “The Language of Architecture and Trauma,” will observe modern responses to trauma including disaster relief, today’s “crisis culture,” and the role of writing in addressing trauma. Through the combined lenses of architecture, fine arts, anthropology, and poetics, the program will create a dialogue examining the role of writing in architectural production, and more broadly in affecting the world. For more information on either of these events, visit www.pratt.edu.
Álvaro Siza to Design 122-Meter Condo Tower in New York
Álvaro Siza has been commissioned to design his first ever US project. Planned to rise 122-meters on the corner of West 56th Street and Eleventh Avenue in New York City, the Siza – designed condominium tower will be developed by Sumaida and Khurana – the same firm who just released designs for Tadao Ando’s first New York City tower: 152 Elizabeth Street. Stay tuned for more details.
Spring Studios / AA Studio
Architects: AA Studio
Location: 50 Varick Street, New York, NY 10013, USA
Collaboration: MA Architects
Area: 12000.0 ft2
Year: 2015
Photographs: Alexander Severin/RAZUMMEDIA, DaVinci Stairs
Location: 50 Varick Street, New York, NY 10013, USA
Collaboration: MA Architects
Area: 12000.0 ft2
Year: 2015
Photographs: Alexander Severin/RAZUMMEDIA, DaVinci Stairs
First Look Inside BIG’s W57 Manhattan Pyramid
Field Condition has published a photographic tour through BIG’s first New York project, two months after W57 topped out. A “courtscraper,” as the Danish practice affectionately calls it, the 32-story, 709-unit tower is a hybrid of the European courtyard block and New York City skyscraper. It’s tetrahedral shape, “born from logic,” is designed to provide every resident in the building’s North Tower to have views of the Hudson River, while allowing sunlight deep into the building’s interior space. View the project from within, after the break.
Video: How Clive Wilkinson Architects’ Activity Based Working is Revolutionizing the Office
The latest innovation in workplace design, Clive Wilkinson Architects’ “Activity Based Working” (ABW) has revolutionized the way people go about their daily activities at the GLG Global Headquarters in New York. Broadening the idea of workable area to a number of specialized environments, ABW fosters a new dynamic in office relations, providing spaces for both individualized activity and collaboration. Experience this through the Spirit of Space-produced video above.
“In this film, we hear various viewpoints about how ABW impacts the work environment at GLG,” explains Spirit of Space’s Adam Goss. “How technology enables the user, the psychology behind seating choice, how this new style of working helps achieve the company goals, and how, above all, the architectural design fosters all of this in an efficient and choreographed manner.”
Images Released of Tadao Ando’s First NYC Building
Tadao Ando has unveiled his first New York building. An “ultra-luxury” condominium project known as 152 Elizabeth Street, the 32,000-square-foot building will replace an existing parking lot with a concrete structure comprised of seven residences – all of which will be “treated as custom homes” and “individually configured.”
“Part concrete, part jewel box, the building makes a strong yet quiet statement with a façade comprised of voluminous glass, galvanized steel and flanked by poured in-place concrete and a living green wall that rises the height of the building,” says the architects. The green wall, measuring 55-feet-high and 99-feet-wide and spanning the entire southern façade, is expected to be one of the largest in New York and will be designed by landscaping firm M. Paul Friedberg and Partners.
Never Built New York: Projects From Gaudí, Gehry and Wright that Didn’t Make it in Manhattan
Ever since its unprecedented skyward growth in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Manhattan has been an icon of construction all over the world, with recent estimates concluding that the island contains some 47,000 buildings. However, as with all construction, completed projects are just the tip of the architectural iceberg; Manhattan is also the home of many thousands of unloved, incomplete, and downright impossible proposals that never made it big in the Big Apple.
Of course, the challenges of New York are indiscriminate, and even world-renowned architects often have difficulties building in the city. After the break, we take a look at just three of these proposals, by Antoni Gaudí, Frank Lloyd Wright and Frank Gehry, courtesy of 6sqft.
Renzo Piano’s Columbia University Science Center to Open Next Year
The first phase of Skidmore Owings & Merrill (SOM) and Renzo Piano Building Workshop‘s (RPBW) expansive Manhattanville Campus plan for Columbia University is making significant progress; completion is nearing on a highly-anticipated portion of the project – RPBW’s LEED platinum Jerome L. Greene Science Center, which is scheduled to open in Fall of 2016 just six miles North of the practice’s soon-to-open Whitney Museum.
More on the mixed-use structure after the break.
Tribeca Loft / Andrew Franz Architect
Architects: Andrew Franz Architect
Location: New York, NY, USA
Area: 3000.0 ft2
Year: 2013
Photographs: Albert Vecerka/Esto
Location: New York, NY, USA
Area: 3000.0 ft2
Year: 2013
Photographs: Albert Vecerka/Esto
Perkins+Will’s “Sleek” Manhattan Tower to Feature Five Open-Air Gardens
Conceptual plans of Perkins+Will’s East 37th Street Residential Tower in New York City have been unveiled. Debuted in Cannes, France, during MIPIM, where the high-rise received a “Future Projects Award,” the 700-foot-tall Manhattan tower boasts a “shimmering, angled curtain wall” organized by five clusters of shared amenities and open-air gardens.
More about the 65-story, 150,000-square-foot condominium tower, after the break.
Izaskun Chinchilla Turns to Kickstarter to Realize “Organic Growth” Pavilion
A few months ago, we announced that Izaskun Chinchilla Architects emerged as one of two winnersof FIGMENT’s international “City of Dreams” pavilion competition in New York. Their proposal entitled “Organic Growth” is slated for assembly on Governors Island this summer, but they need your help! Due to the split funding of selecting two winners and FIGMENT’s non-profit status, the design team has launched a kickstarter campaign to make their proposal a reality through public contributions.
Learn more about how you can get involved, after the break.
AD Classics: AT&T Building / Philip Johnson and John Burgee
It may be the single most important architectural detail of the last fifty years. Emerging bravely from the glassy sea of Madison Avenue skyscrapers in midtown Manhattan, the open pediment atop Philip Johnson and John Burgee’s 1984 AT&T Building (now the Sony Tower) singlehandedly turned the architectural world on its head. This playful deployment of historical quotation explicitly contradicted modernist imperatives and heralded the mainstream arrival of an approach to design defined instead by a search for architectural meaning. The AT&T Building wasn’t the first of its type, but it was certainly the most high-profile, proudly announcing that architecture was experiencing the maturation of a new evolutionary phase: Postmodernism had officially arrived to the world scene.
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