Correction: Turns out Gluckman was only flashing us. Balazs doesn’t even think people will stay overnight in art. And his flacks didn’t even find it necessary to call (for that matter, nor did Gluckman). Turns out Polshek is designing the building. Via Curbed.
Original Item: Apparently Andre Balazs is confident that whereas people will stay overnight in art, he’s not as confident that they will live in it (even at rather museum-like prices). Richard Gluckman has renderings (under the commerical section) of a new hotel project slated for the Meatpacking District. Located on the infamous Jean Nouvel site, it is more modest in scale, though hardly small, if the renderings are accurate. And it is far more striking than One Kenmare Place, the other project Gluckman has underway for Balazs, though that isn’t necessarily much of an accomplishment.
Reminscent of a number of projects, such as Nouvel’s own Hotel des Thermes (you’ll have to dig though the links yourself) and several by OMA and Herzog and de Meuron, it falls cleanly in the late modernist aesthetic of defamiliarized form and scale via a patterned cladding that envelopes the entire structure. Though Nouvel’s hotel is less about a relentless patterning (unlike his L’Institut du Monde Arabe), as the louvers are of room scale, it is notable as a relatively prominent and early example of screening the entire facade, an interesting formal gesture for a building type that is typically expected to provide views. The most recent and extreme exercises in this vein would be the forever pending Prada boutique in San Francisco. Provided Balazs’ hotel goes through as designed, it would stand out as one of the more aggresive examples of contemporary design in these parts.
The handling of the High Line underpass (and, by the way, what happened to all the really sexy stuff in the DSR concept? No floating ampitheater, no pool — I’d post about this at more length, but it seems a little too much grousing, even for me) is particuarly daring: a long cantilever that transforms what would otherwise be an absolutely typical form in a clever skin. The cut is repeated at a smaller scale on the upper portion, in what is likely to be the obgliatory roof top bar space. A detail shows four different patterning systems, but it isn’t apparent how they relate to the larger images. They may be constituent elements that form the final image, though the main rendering appears simply to be one of the four patterns. It is also hard to imagine exactly what the materials will be. The screen will most definitely be aluminum or stainless (or perhaps one of the exotic metals that Gehry has been experimenting with), which presents in interesting maintenance issue. Nouvel’s screen, when I saw it several years ago, was plenty dingy. It would be interesting if the material was going be ‘distressed’ in construction, or left raw, but this is unlikely. Given Gluckman’s promise that his rather bland brick choice at Kenmare Place is supposed to glitter, or glow, or whatever (something I still haven’t seen happen), this may be cause for concern. Maybe Balazs will have interns wipe it down regularly.
As interesting as this project may be, I can’t help but be cynical about the disparity between this and the Kenmare Place project (which remains resolutely banal as it inches towards completion). It really looks like a quid pro quo: let me put your name on a middling apartment block and I’ll let you build a really sexy hotel. It’s also disappointing to think that it’s either not economically viable, or a lack of confidence in home buyers, that there aren’t residential projects with this much character. The Porter House from ShoP is one welcome antidote, but unfortunately too much in the minority.
Balazs new holeytel.
Correction: Turns out Gluckman was only flashing us. Balazs doesn’t even think people will stay overnight in art. And his flacks didn’t even find it necessary to call (for that matter, nor did Gluckman). Turns out Polshek is designing the building. Via Curbed.
Original Item: Apparently Andre Balazs is confident that whereas people will stay overnight in art, he’s not as confident that they will live in it (even at rather museum-like prices). Richard Gluckman has renderings (under the commerical section) of a new hotel project slated for the Meatpacking District. Located on the infamous Jean Nouvel site, it is more modest in scale, though hardly small, if the renderings are accurate. And it is far more striking than One Kenmare Place, the other project Gluckman has underway for Balazs, though that isn’t necessarily much of an accomplishment.
Reminscent of a number of projects, such as Nouvel’s own Hotel des Thermes (you’ll have to dig though the links yourself) and several by OMA and Herzog and de Meuron, it falls cleanly in the late modernist aesthetic of defamiliarized form and scale via a patterned cladding that envelopes the entire structure. Though Nouvel’s hotel is less about a relentless patterning (unlike his L’Institut du Monde Arabe), as the louvers are of room scale, it is notable as a relatively prominent and early example of screening the entire facade, an interesting formal gesture for a building type that is typically expected to provide views. The most recent and extreme exercises in this vein would be the forever pending Prada boutique in San Francisco. Provided Balazs’ hotel goes through as designed, it would stand out as one of the more aggresive examples of contemporary design in these parts.
The handling of the High Line underpass (and, by the way, what happened to all the really sexy stuff in the DSR concept? No floating ampitheater, no pool — I’d post about this at more length, but it seems a little too much grousing, even for me) is particuarly daring: a long cantilever that transforms what would otherwise be an absolutely typical form in a clever skin. The cut is repeated at a smaller scale on the upper portion, in what is likely to be the obgliatory roof top bar space. A detail shows four different patterning systems, but it isn’t apparent how they relate to the larger images. They may be constituent elements that form the final image, though the main rendering appears simply to be one of the four patterns. It is also hard to imagine exactly what the materials will be. The screen will most definitely be aluminum or stainless (or perhaps one of the exotic metals that Gehry has been experimenting with), which presents in interesting maintenance issue. Nouvel’s screen, when I saw it several years ago, was plenty dingy. It would be interesting if the material was going be ‘distressed’ in construction, or left raw, but this is unlikely. Given Gluckman’s promise that his rather bland brick choice at Kenmare Place is supposed to glitter, or glow, or whatever (something I still haven’t seen happen), this may be cause for concern. Maybe Balazs will have interns wipe it down regularly.
As interesting as this project may be, I can’t help but be cynical about the disparity between this and the Kenmare Place project (which remains resolutely banal as it inches towards completion). It really looks like a quid pro quo: let me put your name on a middling apartment block and I’ll let you build a really sexy hotel. It’s also disappointing to think that it’s either not economically viable, or a lack of confidence in home buyers, that there aren’t residential projects with this much character. The Porter House from ShoP is one welcome antidote, but unfortunately too much in the minority.
Courtesy Triple Mint via Archinect.