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-   -   NEW YORK | 111 W 57th St | 1,428 FT | 85 FLOORS (https://skyscraperpage.com/forum/showthread.php?t=198228)

cadiomals Oct 25, 2013 4:34 AM

Am I the only one who thinks this tower is far too skinny? I still think 432 Park Ave is a tad skinny, but I've gotten used to it. However this will probably be half the width. Come on, that's ridiculous. :koko: I hope they have some sort of redesign so it fits in better with the skyline at least. There is no use in just building uninspired supertall sticks with no sense of design that are going to look peculiar in a skyline of much thicker buildings. If this gets built as is I'm really going to miss admiring the pretty midtown skyline with its formerly tasteful architecture.

I really don't want New York to turn into another Dubai, where skyscrapers are symbols of a hyper-rich individual who just wants to burn their excess money, with an agglomeration of random oddly designed towers that don't fit well with each other at all. Forgive me for expressing my opinion :shrug:

JayPro Oct 25, 2013 5:45 AM

For one thing, building really slender--especially in Western metro areas--doesn't necessarily have to be seen as something of a mocking copycat gesture aimed at Dubai or any other (virtually all) Asian cities that do this. They're busy enough engaging in pissing contests...just by doing exactly that.
Here in the West, this latest building trend usually reflects the economic realities involved in it...of course, with more than a fair share of ego and architectural one-upsmanship thrown in. Sure, these "sliverscapers" are going to attract the megarich mike moths to a flame, with the asking prices rising with each floor closer to the sky.

But with less square footage comes a smaller price tag...that is, to build it. Nordstrom's tower is immense in both ways--height and width--only because of the corporate entity involved, and with it the money it can shell out to make things like that happen.

To be sure also, though, these borderline-superetalls are *planned* and built with more than just a pretty view of Central Park and environs in mind (And PS: What do the folks living and working in Burj Khalifa have to look down at except a glorified public fountain and a Coruscant clone in the middle of the smegging desert???). The occupants themselves of these buildings--i.e. the penthouse dwellers--are the the money machines and revenue generators that will make the Big Apple all the more solvent.

It may sound dehumanizing to some degree; but in the end, everyone's a happier person for it.

McSky Oct 25, 2013 6:18 AM

I don't get a Dubai vibe from these buildings at all. Not to mention that they will be interspersed with lower buildings, many of which are classic stone and brick structures.

It looks like NYC to me.


http://i1287.photobucket.com/albums/...pse39c9e22.jpg

Diagrams from SSP:

http://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?


The Dubai marina is very impressive, especially for the speed at which it has been built, but the effect will be quite different from Manhattan, even in 2020.

http://i1287.photobucket.com/albums/...psc90f0a2c.jpg

JayPro Oct 25, 2013 6:29 AM

I'm looking at 111 right now and thinking that One57 and Tower Verre, both of whom I had seen as kinda yin-yangy sisters, are now the Opera Phantom and Christine getting hitched and announcing the coming birth of one helluva baby.

cadiomals Oct 25, 2013 7:39 AM

I agree with many of your points, Jay. I just hope that they will redesign the tower to look more aesthetically pleasing and slightly more fitting with the skyline. As of right now, it looks like a tall, thin eyeliner pencil jammed into the ground amongst much thicker and stouter buildings. Also, having the building be continuously set back like that doesn't make sense because it will make the higher apartments' floorspace significantly smaller, when higher floors are usually more expensive.

I used to have the same problem with 432 Park Ave, but I realized that the almond/beige coloring of the building as well as its squareness will fit in well enough with the older stone/concrete buildings even if it's tall.

One thing they could do is make the building more symmetrical, rather than having one side flat and the other tapered. Better yet, a Tower Verre stretched this tall would have been really nice.

Quote:

Not to mention that they will be interspersed with lower buildings, many of which are classic stone and brick structures.
That's exactly the issue I have with this tower. Like I said earlier, it is essentially a thin eyeliner pencil amongst thicker and shorter towers.

And when I'm talking about Dubai, I'm not necessarily saying that New York's new buildings look like Dubai's buildings, but that these developers seem to be rushing to build these random supertalls without giving much thought to their aesthetics or how they will fit into the skyline. In 10 years time we may lose the beautiful and iconic midtown skyline, and it will instead just be a random agglomeration of oddly designed towers with no distinct overall character, like in Dubai. :yuck:

hunser Oct 25, 2013 11:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cadiomals (Post 6315199)
Am I the only one who thinks this tower is far too skinny? I still think 432 Park Ave is a tad skinny, but I've gotten used to it. However this will probably be half the width. Come on, that's ridiculous. :koko: I hope they have some sort of redesign so it fits in better with the skyline at least. There is no use in just building uninspired supertall sticks with no sense of design that are going to look peculiar in a skyline of much thicker buildings. If this gets built as is I'm really going to miss admiring the pretty midtown skyline with its formerly tasteful architecture.

I really don't want New York to turn into another Dubai, where skyscrapers are symbols of a hyper-rich individual who just wants to burn their excess money, with an agglomeration of random oddly designed towers that don't fit well with each other at all. Forgive me for expressing my opinion :shrug:

Dubai? Seriously? This tower couldn't be more New York.

Quote:

The designers said they got their inspiration for the sleek structure from early cloud-busters such as the Empire State and Woolworth buildings. “It really comes from ... these slender, tapering towers (but) rethinks them in a totally modern way,” said Gregg Pasquarelli, principal at SHoP Architects.
Quote:

“It’s not something that could be been plucked off the skyline of Singapore or Hong Kong,” he said. “We’re all New York.”
Please don't compare this wonderful tower (or any supertall in New York for that matter) with the tacky, overdone and cheap looking Dubai Marina Towers. Thanks.

401PAS Oct 25, 2013 12:46 PM

Totally agree that this couldn't be any MORE NYC! And with the stair-step setbacks is so reminiscent of some of the great residential building lining CPS, CPW and 5th Ave that boarder Central Park.

To have a residential building that tall it has to be thin. Obviously the confines of the lot dictated that. But I think a tall wide residential building don't work either aesthetically or practically for the clientele that they are going after. I would imagine that most of the higher floors will be full floor single units which give much more exclusivity "penthouse" feel even without being the one on the very top.

I say, perfect fit for NYC in the 21st century!

NYguy Oct 25, 2013 5:13 PM

This tower, along with others planned, will go a long way towards bringing the dramatic Manhattan skyline of years long gone. it needs to be tall and thin. One of the most impressive things about Manhattan is it's density, the scope of the towers that line the canyons. Unfortunately, having that many large and boxy towers, especially in that mass only deadens the skyline. It's hard to get a "great" skyline shot. The taller towers being built now will stand out and above the rest.


http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8SHKndctZW...ewyorkcity.jpg
http://www.stardustmoderndesign.com/...rly-1950s.html

THE BIG APPLE Oct 27, 2013 12:33 AM

The Future of the Central Park Skyline

It's like begging for something (1000 footers) and finally getting them all at once. This will be central park in 20 years! Are we headed towards a glorious path or dangerous path?

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-d...152/FUTURE.jpg

Duck From NY Oct 27, 2013 4:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NYguy (Post 6315642)
This tower, along with others planned, will go a long way towards bringing the dramatic Manhattan skyline of years long gone. it needs to be tall and thin. One of the most impressive things about Manhattan is it's density, the scope of the towers that line the canyons. Unfortunately, having that many large and boxy towers, especially in that mass only deadens the skyline. It's hard to get a "great" skyline shot. The taller towers being built now will stand out and above the rest.


http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8SHKndctZW...ewyorkcity.jpg
http://www.stardustmoderndesign.com/...rly-1950s.html

What makes it even more fitting is that the peaks of the 20s/30s grew up above boxier buildings of the previous generation. Now we have thin residentials rising out of 60s-80s boxes.

Crawford Oct 27, 2013 9:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duck From NY (Post 6317124)
Now we have thin residentials rising out of 60s-80s boxes.

I feel the same way. It's basically the restoration of the original skyline, but in an updated version. It's the return of the classic NYC skyline.

Guiltyspark Oct 27, 2013 4:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Crawford (Post 6317221)
I feel the same way. It's basically the restoration of the original skyline, but in an updated version. It's the return of the classic NYC skyline.

I was just going to say this! People got pissed when massive floorplate office towers changed the way the skyline looked, and now they are pissed when we make a return to the tall, thin towers of the 20s and 30s. Some people just like to complain. These towers will bring back the awe inspiring height which I think is better than a 200-250 meter plateau of office blocks that comprises most of midtown.

Guiltyspark Oct 27, 2013 6:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by THE BIG APPLE (Post 6316968)
The Future of the Central Park Skyline

It's like begging for something (1000 footers) and finally getting them all at once. This will be central park in 20 years! Are we headed towards a glorious path or dangerous path?

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-d...152/FUTURE.jpg

Aren't most of the mid rise residential buildings right along the park historically protected? I assumed is why we are seeing the new supertalls going up one block south? So no, I don't think we will ever see a future that resembles what you have created here and if we do, hopefully the towers have better massing and greater variety in their height.

JayPro Oct 27, 2013 6:43 PM

I don't quite think that what we're seeing here is to be taken with any seriousness.

I do sympathize with the concern underlying the question being asked, however. That said, I really don't think that NYC's 57th Street corridor is in danger of becomong the Dubai Strip anytime in the future.
And yes, the prewar buildings directly along the CP border are protected. But I am glad that something will be done to that ParkLane hotel, which all of a sudden has gone from a dull 70's slab in the midst of timeless architecture to a grimy, *outdated* slab that desperately needs replacement.

NYguy Oct 27, 2013 7:53 PM

Another angle...


http://www.designboom.com/architectu...rk-10-18-2013/


http://www.designboom.com/wp-content...ignboom-03.jpg



http://www.pbase.com/nyguy/image/153098777/original.jpg

supertallchaser Oct 27, 2013 8:22 PM

^I like it

miesian Oct 27, 2013 8:28 PM

This project has a lot of potential. So far....innovative and exciting. What's not to like?

King DenCity Oct 27, 2013 9:08 PM

^The fact that it isn't built yet. ;)
Seriously though it's beautiful.:)

NYguy Oct 28, 2013 10:40 PM

http://architizer.com/blog/sky-high/


Are Billionaires Ruining The New York Skyline? An Exhibition Examines The New Luxury Tower


https://architizercdn.s3.amazonaws.c...87892ab9e8.jpg


Carl Yost


Quote:

“I defend these buildings against people who take moral offense because ‘only wealthy people live in them,’” says Carol Willis, the director of Skyscraper Museum. She isn’t talking about Justin Davidson’s epic takedown of the luxury residential tower One57 in New York Magazine a few weeks earlier, but she might as well be. “All they are doing is playing by the rules of the 1960s. To me, it’s fair play.”

It’s a refreshing perspective. Preposterously tall, anorexically slender residential buildings are popping up all across Manhattan, like it or not. Maybe I’m out of touch with the zeitgeist of post-Bloomberg backlash, but I think they’re exciting additions to the skyline, and I’m meeting Willis in her museum’s current exhibition, “Sky High & the Logic of Luxury,” to understand why. “It’s about slender, not tall,” she says as we walk to the front of the gallery. “Slenderness is a strategy for luxury.” In an engineering context, “slenderness” has a precise definition: a height-to-width-ratio of at least 10:1 or 12:1. Think of a ruler standing on its end, or the proportions of the 617-foot-high, 50-foot-wide One Madison.

Willis points to a collage of eight renderings of super-skinny residential buildings that will soon pierce the sky. It’s about exclusivity, she explains: the fewer apartments per floor, the more exclusive the building, and the more each unit is worth. She contrasts a residential building like the world’s current tallest, the Princess Tower in Dubai, which has more than 700 apartments, with One57, which has only 135—many of them full-floor.

“People don’t realize how new this is, but it comes step-by-step out of the 1980s,” she says as we approach a model of the Darth Vader-like, black-glass wedge of SOM’s 1987 Metropolitan Tower at 146 West 57th Street. Until that time, “New York was really organized as a co-op town.” By the '80s, however, buildings like the Trump and Olympic Towers on Fifth Avenue revealed a market of wealthy buyers, many from abroad, who wanted private pieds-à-terre. High-rise condos sprang up all over the city, but they weren’t particularly slender. Then financier Sanford I. Weill sold his penthouse at 15 Central Park West in February 2012 for a then-record $88 million. At $13,000 per square foot, the financial calculus had changed. “It’s the value of the per-square-foot that makes super-slender possible,” she says. “You can spend a lot of money if you think there’s a market that will support five thousand, six thousand dollars per square foot.” The ability to engineer super-slenderness had been around for decades, but the financial rationale was missing. “Everyone thought it was economically preposterous, until people started paying 45, 88 million for an apartment. It’s perfectly logical, but the logic hadn’t been demonstrated until the last round.”

Willis walks me over to a model of Rafael Viñoly’s 432 Park Avenue, soon to be the tallest residential building in the western hemisphere at 1396 feet, and the star of the exhibition. On a touchscreen she scrolls across the panoramic views from a penthouse that hasn’t even been constructed yet, the photos taken by remote-controlled drone. She explains how reducing the footprint of the core generates maximum revenue. Compared with an office tower, a residential building—especially one with only one or two units per floor—requires far fewer elevators: 432 Park Avenue has only two, plus one service elevator. Viñoly’s office also designed an intertwined scissor stair that reduced the stair area 10% and generated “luxurious” floor-to-floor heights of 15' 6". The stair, together with the developable air rights that developer Harry Macklowe pieced together from adjacent buildings, accounts for the tower’s breathtaking height.

Willis clearly admires the building: “Everything about it is guided by a logic that has a mathematical purity,” she says. She points to its expressive structure, in the exposed concrete grid; to the nearly 10-foot-square windows, at the bleeding edge of glass engineering; and to the recessed wind baffles, which break up the building mass every 12 stories.

But the 15:1 slenderness of 432 Park Avenue has nothing on SHoP’s 111 West 57th Street, which zips upward from the courtyard of the historic Steinway Building at a ratio of 23:1. With feathered setbacks at its peak to conform to the zoning envelope, Willis likens it to a feather quill set in an inkwell. The model included in the exhibition towers above my head, almost high enough to brush its reflection reaching downward in the ceiling.

I ask Willis whether she expects to see many more of these super-slender buildings, but she says not many. They result from very specific, very limited site conditions. So many cluster around 57th Street because the zoning allows tall buildings there, and the Central Park views appeal to luxury buyers, encouraging developers to aim for loftier heights. 99 Church Street, a Four Seasons condo-hotel designed by Robert A. M. Stern, the architect of 15 Central Park West, and the condo tower 50 West Street, by Helmut Jahn, both fall within one of Lower Manhattan’s high-rise zoning districts. Diller Scofidio + Renfro’s Tower D will be located in the Hudson Yards insta-neighborhood.

And Herzog & de Meuron’s 56 Leonard Street, an anomaly in predominantly low-rise Tribeca, used up the air rights from New York Law School next door. With a shiny, derivative bean wedged next to the entrance, the targeted buyer is clearly the art collector who has no taste—and it’s working. As I write this, all but five units are under contract.

“All these things work together,” Willis says, meaning land price, zoning, air rights, celebrity architects' fees, engineering and construction costs, views, art, and the number of apartments per floor. “The logic is exclusivity, but it’s supported by a simple math.” In a way, she's simply extending the analysis of her excellent 1995 book Form Follows Finance: given certain conditions of market demand, zoning, and engineering, the basic shape of a skyscraper is almost a fait accompli. Don't like it? You might as well rage against the tide.

And bemoaning the height of these buildings as anti-urban blight misses an important fact about the transfer of developable air rights: “These buildings use up the low space—they use it up forever.” That is, relocating the stratospherically wealthy into the stratosphere, paradoxically, brings more light and air down to the rest of us.

“I think these really add enormously to the city,” she says. “All these buildings end up being one more chapter, one more card in the deck of the extraordinary type that this city spawns.”

McSky Oct 29, 2013 12:58 AM

People were probably worried about the skyline's "integrity" during the time depicted on the postcard below, when a handful of buildings stood out above all others.

http://i1287.photobucket.com/albums/...ps6e7fa342.jpg


That said, the stakes are higher now as far as the length of the shadow cast by all the new 900-foot+ tall buildings NYC will gain by 2020. But the skyline will be even more spectacular.

Will there be more widespread height restrictions? Not likely during this next cycle, especially if the midtown east re-zoning is approved. But eventually height restrictions might be imposed.

I for one would rather not have supertalls right along Central Park South, or indeed on 5th Avenue or CPW. I think a height restriction of 700 feet or so is reasonable for those park-lining blocks. But with 220 CPS slated for 920', we'll get a chance to see what a really tall building right on the Park will look like.


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