The General Theological Seminary’s Chapel of the Good Shepherd overlooks the center of one of New York’s best blocks. The Seminary’s brick collegiate gothic buildings were designed by Charles Coolidge Haight. The Chapel and bell tower of his design were built in 1886-88. The block of West 20th Street in Chelsea between Ninth and Tenth Avenues is one of … The Seminary Block of West 20th Street
Henry Wellge’s “Greatest New York”, published by The New York Times Company in 1911 and featured in a new exhibition at the New York Public Library, places the city within a liquid embrace. Its foreground features the Jersey City waterfront. New Jersey commuters transferred from Central Railroad of New Jersey trains onto ferries bound for Lower Manhattan, tracing a … Mapping New York's Shoreline, 1609-2009
Stern’s presumptuousness may owe something to the huge attention and acclaim that attended upon 15 Central Park West, the luxury condo he designed for the Zeckendorf Brothers. Based on classic prewar apartment buildings by Rosario Candela, the project is probably the biggest real estate phenomenon New York has ever seen. Quarterly New York real estate reports had to be adjusted to factor … Robert A.M. Stern, part 2
A rendering shows the main entrance of Robert A.M. Stern’s George W. Bush Presidential Center. “I’m not considered avant-garde because I’m not avant-garde,” Stern says, “but there is a parallel world out there – of excellence.” Earlier this month Robert A.M. Stern presented his preliminary design of the the Bush Library. Stern has just the right attributes to be … Robert A.M. Stern, part 1
A sketch of the Brooklyn Bridge by Lewis Mumford On the eve of another 9/11, a love letter to New York from Lewis Mumford comes to mind. His autobiography, Sketches From Life, describes a youthful walk across the Brooklyn Bridge when he caught “a fleeting glimpse of the utmost possibilities life may hold for man.” Yes: I loved the … Here Was My City
It’s one of New York’s redeeming qualities that it never runs out of sights to offer even a regular wanderer of its neighborhoods. In addition to planned street-scapes and open spaces, endless random combinations of elements accidentally yield distinctive places. ArchiTakes launches its “New York Places” category with one of these, in Brooklyn. The block of Greenpoint’s Guernsey … Guernsey Street
In his 1932 essay, The Frozen Fountain, Claude Bragdon wrote, “A building, however lofty, must end somehow, and the designer’s ability is here put to the severest test, and will be measured by the success with which this termination is affected – by the beauty with which his building dies on the white counterpane of … An Hour of Skyscrapers
Smarticulation is facade articulation intended to make a building look purposeful and important. It is primarily found in large buildings with glass curtainwalls and achieved by crisply projecting or recessing an area of the facade by two or three feet. This shallow modeling has no impact on the use of the building, so it can be applied as an afterthought to … Smarticulation
Philip Johnson said that outdoor sculpture “lights up the sky”. He was talking about the way solid and void energize each other in an interplay of figure and ground, a principle that certainly applies to tall buildings. Flatiron Building postcard view Much of the Flatiron Building’s appeal to artists and photographers, for example, lies in its siting on an acute intersection where views allow … How to Meet the Sky
This year is the centenary of a cartoon that has had a remarkable influence on architecture. Published in Life magazine’s “Real Estate Number” of March, 1909, the full-page cartoon by A.B. Walker shows conventional houses stacked on an open skyscraper frame. Its caption reads, “‘Buy a cozy cottage in our steel constructed choice lots, less than a mile above Broadway. … Influential "Life" Cartoon Turns 100
With Kisho Kurokawa’s Nakagin Capsule Tower (photo: Scarletgreen/Flickr) headed for demolition, the world will lose not just one of the few executed works of Japanese Metabolism, as noted earlier this month by Nicolai Ouroussoff in the New York Times, but a rare built example of plug-in architecture. The Capsule Tower might at first appear no more than a quaint, dated vision of … Plug-in Architecture Loses an Icon
Jean Nouvel presented his design for the new MoMA tower in a public hearing at the City Planning Commission yesterday. Calling it “zee meezing peez of zee pizzle”, Nouvel made a case for the spike of his “Tower Verre” as a natural fit within the sawtooth rhythm of Manhattan’s skyline. Describing its lack of bulk and the way it leans back from the street and attenuates into … Nouvel's Tower Verre Not the Only Vision in the Hearing Room
Architakes launches its Lists category with 10 great houses. If there’s a common thread, it’s the way good design makes more from less. In chronological order: Magney House, Bingie Point, NSW, Australia, 1982-84 Glenn Murcutt, Architect Murcutt’s houses reflect the life-simplifying advice of Thoreau. Typically only one room deep, their interiors are intimate with nature. A half-dozen Murcutt houses … 10 of the Best Houses from the Last 25 Years
Ground has been broken on a new Bronx Community College building by Robert A.M. Stern that will leave Stanford White’s Gould Memorial Library off-center on its historic quadrangle.
Does this building look somehow familiar? The pointed center tower surrounded by minions and topped with a gold sculpture, the embracing wings, the arched entrance in the foreground and the side arcades; is there not a family resemblance to Manhattan’s Municipal Building?
The City University of New York has demolished a 1914 garage on its LaGuardia Community College campus that was part of the historic Loose-Wiles Sunshine Biscuit plant in Long Island City. The building had been protected by its formal status as “eligible” for listing on the State and National Registers of Historic Places until the New York State … CUNY Demolishes Historic Queens Building