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New York, New York
Now I'm riding all over this island looking for something to open my eyes
October is a big month in New York. In addition to Open House New York, the NY AIA hosts an event oddly named Archtober. Unlike something like Rocktober (where "rock" and "oct" at least are close to rhyming), Archtober (where "arch" and "oct" are not even close to rhyming) is honestly just an odd name for a pretty awesome month long event. Every day that month, tours are offered of a different building somewhere in the city (and by "city," they pretty much mean Manhattan or maybe Brooklyn). A lot of the tours looked interesting and a handful looked unmissable.
The first site that I went to this past Archtober was Zaha Hadid's still under construction residential building at the High Line, 520 West 28th Street. The tour started at the Zaha designed showroom and sales center before going on site to see the progress all around you, with tour guides both from Related (the developers) and the Zaha Hadid New York office. Potentially a great city building, although it's hard to imagine that the triplex penthouse will ever sell for its listed $50,000,0000 price. It's nice and all but damn that's a lot of money for something without river views.
As an architect, I love architectural models. More than renderings or plans or sections, they give you the best feel of what to actually expect, and allows you to see things that you might otherwise miss, or that might otherwise be hidden from you in a rendering. Also as an architect who had to build many, many architectural models in architecture and graduate school, and who honestly was never all that good at architectural model building, it’s always nice to see a well built architectural model in person.
While I love architectural models, nothing beats seeing the real thing in person. The façade of custom metal panels and curved glass was beautiful up close, and the views from the unfinished apartment of the High Line were beautiful, although it does give you second thoughts about living at 520 West 28th Street. People watching goes in both directions, meaning that many of the people you are looking at walking on the High Line will be looking back at you and taking pictures of your apartment and the very interesting building you spent all that money to live in. I guess you could do window treatments, but why buy a view like that if all you do is spend your time hiding from it?
I currently own three hard hats, although I have never paid for one outright. The first one came from a hard hat tour of Hoover Dam where they let you keep the hard hat, and the other two were given to me by construction companies that I worked with at some point. At the on site tour of 520 West 28th Street, we were given these Zaha Hadid branded hard hats to wear, and immediately there was a buzz among the attendees hoping to score a free Zaha Hadid branded hard hat but, alas, it was not to be. Just as we were given them at the beginning of the tour, they were also cruelly taken away from us at its end. Nothing lasts forever I guess.
The second site that I went to was a tour of Hudson Yards, even though we never left the office tower at 30 Hudson Yards. The tour went to all sorts of floors, included multiple models, videos (including a 360 degree one at the sales center), a full replica of a high floor apartment in the DS+R building and lots of views of both the adjacent steel construction and ones just like this of the High Line, far, far below.
Yes! More architectural models!
Hudson Yards went all out in their preview center, with another model with video below and behind, trying to tell you how you’re not all that fara way from the rest of Midtown and that even if you are, it doesn’t matter because everything you’ll ever need is right here. And they also had a walk in, 360 degree theatre experience where you could stand on the plaza and gawk at the Vessel during all four seasons. Unfortunately you had to imagine the cold, cold wind from the river whipping at your face until your skin is raw and red during the winter view scene, but it will be open in a couple of years and we’ll all get to experience that feeling soon enough.
Now this is a view of the High Line that you don’t have to worry about someone looking back at you from.
This next Archtober site takes us to Brooklyn and St Ann's Warehouse, a shockingly flexible performance space designed by Marvel Architects who (one can only assume) live in constant fear of being sued by the Walt Disney Company who own the Marvel trademark and rights. The performing arts center took over the old roofless brick warehouse that used to host Saturday Smorgasburg and the site could not be better. As for the theatre, I have a great desire to see a performance there but just haven't found the right one yet. For example, just before the tour, St Ann's Warehouse hosted a 24 hour concert by Taylor Mac featuring popular music for the last 24 decades, starting in 1776. While it may have been awesome, even the thought of staying awake 24 hours for anything at this point of my life seems as insane as thinking that Archtober rhymes with October.
And even if you don’t buy that ticket to that Taylor Mac concert, you can still stand in the courtyard for very special view of the Brooklyn Bridge, which somehow looks better here than it does just outside.
If you’ve actually been reading these slideshows (I guess anything is possible, right?), then you already know how much I have been using and loving Kolor Auropano to construct panoramas. When building them, you are given many options and I usually tend to use the more rectilinear options, but every now and then (for example, right now), the mirror ball option can work well too. So while it doesn’t capture the truly realistic view from the observation deck at One World Trade Center, it does give you this pretty good unrealistic view.
I loved the view from the original World Trade Center observation deck, with its narrow windows, step down viewing area and rooftop open air deck. So when the new One World Trade Center Observation Deck was announced, I made nonrefundable reservations its first week, only to find myself there on a miserable, cloudy rainy day with literally zero visibility. There were no refunds, and my angry email to their customer service people remained unanswered. It took me some time to give the observation deck there another try, and while the weather was certainly better, I still came away disappointed. The glass windows are angled in, meaning that its damn hard to get a photo without your reflection messing it all up. And the windows also have deep sills to them, where tourists sit and block a lot of the better views. Add in the fact that they chose not to add an outdoor deck, and, well, the view is still good but it’s hard not to walk away disappointed in where you just were.
And if you’re at the World Trade Center when the sky is just right, try, just try not to take way, way too many pictures of Santiago Calatrava’s Oculus. I dare you.
