New York City: The Latest Architecture and News

New York Magazine asked some of New York City’s distinguished architects how they would improve the city and save it from climate change. NY Mag reported on their findings.

Construction on the transformation of Eero Saarinen’s iconic TWA Flight Center into the new TWA Hotel has hit major milestone, as the project has now topped out.

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New renderings have revealed of Adjaye Associate’s first New York City residential tower, 130 William, as foundational work on the project is underway. Located in the Financial District not far from the World Trade Center complex, 130 William will rise 66 stories to contain 244 luxury condominiums.

2017 was another banner year for skyscraper construction.

According to the 2017 Tall Building Year in Review, the annual web report from The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH), a record-breaking 144 buildings 200 meters tall (656 feet tall) or higher were completed in 2017, led by the 599-meter-tall Ping An Finance Center and 555-meter-tall Lotte World Tower.

In the report, CTBUH outlines this year’s trends in tall building design. Notably, 2017 proved to be the most geographically diverse year in history for tall buildings, with 69 cities across 23 countries completing new towers, an significant increase from 54 cities and 18 countries in 2016. Of those numbers, 28 cities and 8 countries completed their new tallest building.

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The idea for the vessel came from feeling that we shouldn’t just make a sculpture or a monument – it felt to us that rather than building a sculpture, it would be great if something was creating more public space.

In the latest video in their Daily 360 series, The New York Times takes us inside Heatherwick Studio’s “Vessel” at Hudson Yards. After topping out last week, the full 154 flights of stairs that make up the unique public structure are now in place, offering some pretty extraordinary views of the Hudson River and west Manhattan.

Construction on the Santiago Calatrava-designed St. Nicholas National Shrine at the World Trade Center has halted, after the church failed to make a series of payments over a several month period to contractor Skanska.

As revealed by the Pappas Post, last week the construction company distributed a letter to its subcontractors informing them that the building contract had been terminated after The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America defaulted on making payment. In the letter, Skanska directed subcontractors to stop all work and to remove all tools and materials from the site, or risk not being able to recover them.

The winner of the fourth annual Flatiron Plaza Holiday Design Competition, ‘Flatiron Refelection’ by Brooklyn-based Future Expansion, has been unveiled in New York City.

Hosted by the Flatiron/23rd Street Partnership Business Improvement District (BID) and Van Alen Institute, the temporary installation will serve as the “highly-visible centerpiece” of the neighbourhood’s holiday season programming.

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Videos

Heatherwick Studio’s glimmering staircase monument, ‘Vessel,’ has topped out after eight months of construction at New York City’s Hudson Yards development. Consisting of 154 flights of stairs, 2,500 individual steps and 80 landings, the sculptural public space has now reached its full height of 150 feet, which will allow it to offer sweeping views of Manhattan’s west side when it opens in early 2019.

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Facing plans for a major renovation that would significantly alter the street presence of the building, Philip Johnson’s Postmodern icon, 550 Madison (formerly AT&T Building) has now cleared the first stage in the process of becoming a designated New York City landmark.

Today, an application to schedule a hearing to landmark the building was approved unanimously by the city’s Landmarks and Preservation Commission (LPC). In a few months time, the LPC will hold a public forum for the building, followed by a deliberation on whether or not the tower deserves official landmark status.

Snøhetta has unveiled the design of a new residential skyscraper to be built in Manhattan’s Upper West Side that will feature a unique, multi-level amenity terrace carved from the tower’s form. Located at 50 West 66th Street just steps from iconic New York City landmarks including Lincoln Center and Central Park, the tower aims to sensitively respond to the historic architecture of its context through its intricate form and refined material palette.

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Videos

The New York Public Library has revealed plans for the transformation of their iconic main branch on 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue, the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building. Led by Mecanoo with Beyer Blinder Belle, the $317 million masterplan will increase accessibility to the library as well as increase public space for research, exhibitions and educational programs by 20%.

“For over a century, the Schwarzman Building has been a beacon of open access to information and a tireless preservationist of the world’s knowledge,” said New York Public Library President Tony Marx. “We have a responsibility to preserve its architectural wonder and its role as an important civic space, while also preparing it for the future, and another century of best serving the public. We believe this plan does just that.”

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New renderings have been revealed of Tadao Ando’s first project in New York City, a luxury residential building known as 152 Elizabeth Street, that show the interiors of its exclusive multi-story penthouse for the first time.

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Update 11/9/17: We've added a gallery of items from the show to the post!

Diller Scofidio + Renfro have been selected to collaborate with The Costume Institute on a new exhibition at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art focused on the relationship between fashion, religious art and the devotional practices and traditions of Catholicism.

Titled “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination,” the exhibition will feature fashion and religious artworks from the Met’s collection, as well as more than 50 objects and garments from the Sistine Chapel sacristy, many of which have never been seen before outside of The Vatican.

One of New York’s most iconic Postmodern skyscrapers, the Philip Johnson-designed 550 Madison (formerly AT&T Building) is set to receive a major renovation that will completely transform how the building base interacts with the street.

Designed by Snøhetta, the project centers on improving the transparency of its street presence. To do this, the stone facade at the building base will be replaced with a undulating glass curtain wall intended to be more inviting and attractive toward pedestrians, while the existing mid-block public passageway will be opened into a much larger outdoor landscape.

Just one month after the Thomas Heatherwick-designed Pier 55 project in New York City was declared dead in the water, opposing parties seem to have come to an agreement that will allow the project to continue, thanks to the intervention of New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo.

Videos

S9 Architecture’s Dock 72, a 17-storey commercial office project expected to bring 4,000 workers to the Brooklyn Navy Yard area, has been topped out this month marking the completion of the building’s steel superstructure.

Over 350 construction workers, local business leaders, community representatives and public officials attended the ceremony, which ended with the raising of the final beam signed by all the members of the Dock 72 team.

Now open to residents, the first photos of the lobby and amenity spaces at Zaha Hadid Architects’ New York residential tower, 520 West 28th Street, have been revealed by developer Related Companies. Rising 11 stories next to the High Line in West Chelsea, the building houses 39 bespoke residences, interiors of which were revealed for the first time earlier this year.

Now, the building’s spectacular common spaces are complete, including a 75-foot-long skylight-lit pool; an entertainment lounge with complete kitchen; a fully equipped gym; a 24-hour juice bar; and a spa suite containing a hot tub, rain showers, treatment beds, a plunge pool, sauna and steam room. But perhaps the most unique feature is the 12-seat IMAX theaters, one of the first private IMAX theaters in the world. The space will be able to be reserved by residents for film watching, parties or video game tournaments.

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One of New York City’s original skyscrapers and the former largest office building in the world, the Equitable Building, is set to receive a $50 million renovation and restoration that will bring the historic structure up to 21st century standards.

Built in 1915 in New York’s Financial District by architect Ernest R. Graham, the 1.9-million-square-foot Equitable Building was a pioneer in the city’s skyscraper boom, spanning an entire Broadway block between Pine and Cedar Streets. A simple extrusion of the site footprint, the building was notorious for its overbearing relationship to the street – outcry over which eventually led to the creation of the city’s famous setback zoning laws.

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