A recent post over at Polis called to mind an occasional discussion that creeps up as exhaustion from real estate vampirism sets in: the pervasiveness of luxury. Well, not luxury per se, but the presumption of, the claim of, the advertising of luxury. A luxury that is often not actually evident in the subsequent viewings, but in a town that never fails to develop new ways to adjectivize a 300 square foot space with a sliver jutting out into a ‘one-bedroom’, the marker at which a space is converted into luxury is a slippery one: a four burner stove? A functional door separating where you sleep from where you don’t? Hot water? A $2,000 studio? The list is endless.
The yardsticks one might conventionally use are hard to apply; real estate valuations are so out of whack that spending $2,500 a month for a walk up one bedroom may still be more economical than the mortgage that same space would require. Try telling someone that you spend $30 large on a one bedroom — they will start looking at you like a luxury fellow no doubt.
No, the luxury appellation is particularly grating because it is both a logical fallacy and an insult to the discriminating attitude of a town full of people who sneer at a $3,000 suit because it is still off the rack. Is every new apartment in New York luxurious? It’s like the old Steven Wright joke: somewhere out there is the worst doctor in the world — and someone has an appointment with them today (I try to be more diplomatic — I’ve always wanted to go into a meeting and announce that half the people in the room were the stupid people, and the meeting would be far more successful if they stayed quiet). Somewhere in this town is an apartment that isn’t ‘luxury’ — and I’m probably in it.
Beyond that, the particulars of luxury smack of the most inane of marketing gambits. Since we are all only a half-step from some version of the professional services monster (lawyer, consultant, broker, etc.), we are far too used to looking askance at the mindless repetition of phrases of ‘best of breed’, ‘mission critical’ and ‘taking things off-line.’Â So not only are the pronouncements from brokers deceitful, but we are insulted by their simplistic construction.
It’s a style problem. How many brokers have you met that didn’t make you think that the only job qualification one needs is a certain oiliness? A willingness to lie relentlessly and untrammeled greed seem to be their only skills. Given that this, absent any other details, would describe most of the people living on Manhattan, what grinds is our belief that even if we are all just that, we’re at least smarter and better dressed than the hordes of greedy urbanites that gather in Dallas or Phoenix.
No, the most galling thing about luxury housing is the fact that we think it reflects badly on our own discretion. I don’t want anyone thinking I walked knowingly into some hack rehab or Costas Kondylis kit job because I believed it was somehow superior to the rest of the apartments listed, but rather, find myself again squoze by the mutiple vertices of time, available funds and expediency. I don’t even care so much that I can’t afford what might actually qualify as superior. Well, okay, I mind a little, but considering the time and effort I’ve put into attaining discernment and aesthetic superiority, this democratizing of design is not distressing because the presumption that everyone can have it, but that it can be had through simple effort of declaration.
So what out there would qualify? That’s the worst part. Tropolism is still building out a short list of what might qualify. It is woefully small, relative to any measure: other cities, number of new buildings going up. And they are, at the very least, qualifying of the unctuous luxury descriptor, at least on price. Step down the scale, it becomes a barren place.
Rather than sing the praises of these buildings, the majority of which could be far better, I’m just going to issue a very short list, some speculative, some assumed, of what might truly break into the territory pissy New Yorkers (like me) might acknowledge:
Leading the list, oddly, since very few people actually know what it looks like, is the 40 Bond Street project, from Herzog & de Meuron, picked solely for the most recent description, which sounds like exactly what you expect: a fascinating interrogation of materials based on the historical precedents in the immediate context.
And there’s Meier, who, aside from stealing views (hey, you want to insure your view, buy on the beach), turned out some of the best buildings of his career (You didn’t realize you couldn’t relocate the bathroom? What did you think would was possible with those poured concrete floors?), turning out an almost academic (in the best possible sense) exercise in type and plan resolution. And using every ounce of his reputation to force his vision on a developer (it may have been more collaborative, but I suspect ill of the entire lot).
After that, it turns into a lot of some of this versus some of that. One Kenmare Square has its moments, contrary to my original opinion (the best of which is the seam on the north facade that breaks the brick and introduces a color shift). The Dubbeldam project (is that building occupied yet — going on what, five years of construction?) on Greenwich is interesting if only because is it seems to the have the highest aspirations (and the most compliant developer) in terms of interior and exterior design.
But if you aren’t willing to wait three years for luxury, or don’t happen to have a few spare millions sloshing around, what does this city have for you? Design-wise, well, it’s tenements and Targets for most. Over the past couple months I’ve visited a handful of projects. My delinquency in writing anything has made it convenient to collect these observations into a mini feature. So over the next few weeks, I’ll be doing in-depth discussions of housing for the rest of us. That ‘rest’ may scale up towards a slightly higher end, depending on where I end up between now and when I’m through with this exercise, which will address over several days neighborhood, context, even construction details. Soup to nuts. More than you probably wanted to know. Enjoy.
This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink. Both comments and trackbacks are currently closed.
Luxhastion.
A recent post over at Polis called to mind an occasional discussion that creeps up as exhaustion from real estate vampirism sets in: the pervasiveness of luxury. Well, not luxury per se, but the presumption of, the claim of, the advertising of luxury. A luxury that is often not actually evident in the subsequent viewings, but in a town that never fails to develop new ways to adjectivize a 300 square foot space with a sliver jutting out into a ‘one-bedroom’, the marker at which a space is converted into luxury is a slippery one: a four burner stove? A functional door separating where you sleep from where you don’t? Hot water? A $2,000 studio? The list is endless.
The yardsticks one might conventionally use are hard to apply; real estate valuations are so out of whack that spending $2,500 a month for a walk up one bedroom may still be more economical than the mortgage that same space would require. Try telling someone that you spend $30 large on a one bedroom — they will start looking at you like a luxury fellow no doubt.
No, the luxury appellation is particularly grating because it is both a logical fallacy and an insult to the discriminating attitude of a town full of people who sneer at a $3,000 suit because it is still off the rack. Is every new apartment in New York luxurious? It’s like the old Steven Wright joke: somewhere out there is the worst doctor in the world — and someone has an appointment with them today (I try to be more diplomatic — I’ve always wanted to go into a meeting and announce that half the people in the room were the stupid people, and the meeting would be far more successful if they stayed quiet). Somewhere in this town is an apartment that isn’t ‘luxury’ — and I’m probably in it.
Beyond that, the particulars of luxury smack of the most inane of marketing gambits. Since we are all only a half-step from some version of the professional services monster (lawyer, consultant, broker, etc.), we are far too used to looking askance at the mindless repetition of phrases of ‘best of breed’, ‘mission critical’ and ‘taking things off-line.’Â So not only are the pronouncements from brokers deceitful, but we are insulted by their simplistic construction.
It’s a style problem. How many brokers have you met that didn’t make you think that the only job qualification one needs is a certain oiliness? A willingness to lie relentlessly and untrammeled greed seem to be their only skills. Given that this, absent any other details, would describe most of the people living on Manhattan, what grinds is our belief that even if we are all just that, we’re at least smarter and better dressed than the hordes of greedy urbanites that gather in Dallas or Phoenix.
No, the most galling thing about luxury housing is the fact that we think it reflects badly on our own discretion. I don’t want anyone thinking I walked knowingly into some hack rehab or Costas Kondylis kit job because I believed it was somehow superior to the rest of the apartments listed, but rather, find myself again squoze by the mutiple vertices of time, available funds and expediency. I don’t even care so much that I can’t afford what might actually qualify as superior. Well, okay, I mind a little, but considering the time and effort I’ve put into attaining discernment and aesthetic superiority, this democratizing of design is not distressing because the presumption that everyone can have it, but that it can be had through simple effort of declaration.
So what out there would qualify? That’s the worst part. Tropolism is still building out a short list of what might qualify. It is woefully small, relative to any measure: other cities, number of new buildings going up. And they are, at the very least, qualifying of the unctuous luxury descriptor, at least on price. Step down the scale, it becomes a barren place.
Rather than sing the praises of these buildings, the majority of which could be far better, I’m just going to issue a very short list, some speculative, some assumed, of what might truly break into the territory pissy New Yorkers (like me) might acknowledge:
Leading the list, oddly, since very few people actually know what it looks like, is the 40 Bond Street project, from Herzog & de Meuron, picked solely for the most recent description, which sounds like exactly what you expect: a fascinating interrogation of materials based on the historical precedents in the immediate context.
And there’s Meier, who, aside from stealing views (hey, you want to insure your view, buy on the beach), turned out some of the best buildings of his career (You didn’t realize you couldn’t relocate the bathroom? What did you think would was possible with those poured concrete floors?), turning out an almost academic (in the best possible sense) exercise in type and plan resolution. And using every ounce of his reputation to force his vision on a developer (it may have been more collaborative, but I suspect ill of the entire lot).
After that, it turns into a lot of some of this versus some of that. One Kenmare Square has its moments, contrary to my original opinion (the best of which is the seam on the north facade that breaks the brick and introduces a color shift). The Dubbeldam project (is that building occupied yet — going on what, five years of construction?) on Greenwich is interesting if only because is it seems to the have the highest aspirations (and the most compliant developer) in terms of interior and exterior design.
But if you aren’t willing to wait three years for luxury, or don’t happen to have a few spare millions sloshing around, what does this city have for you? Design-wise, well, it’s tenements and Targets for most. Over the past couple months I’ve visited a handful of projects. My delinquency in writing anything has made it convenient to collect these observations into a mini feature. So over the next few weeks, I’ll be doing in-depth discussions of housing for the rest of us. That ‘rest’ may scale up towards a slightly higher end, depending on where I end up between now and when I’m through with this exercise, which will address over several days neighborhood, context, even construction details. Soup to nuts. More than you probably wanted to know. Enjoy.