Dramatic entries are a given with air travel, and airports should convey a sense of welcome and arrival to travelers landing in a new city, like the great train stations of yesteryear, says architecture critic Paul Goldberger. That doesn’t usually happen. “An inspiring grand welcome to a place is not something you get in most … Continued
City Council Speaker Christine Quinn has announced her support for a 10-year limit to Madison Square Garden’s special permit to operate above Penn Station. This announcement is a huge victory signaling that the city is ready to take the leadership necessary to relocate the arena and begin the process of building a New Penn Station … Continued
Verny Capital, the Kazakh manager of billionaire Bulat Utemuratov’s money, plans to spend $300 million to build a commercial and hotel complex in Astana, the country’s capital. The Talan Towers project will include a 30-floor, 145-meter (475-foot) office building and a 26-story residential complex with a Ritz-Carlton hotel, Verny said in a statement distributed today … Continued
The penthouse popped up for $60 million a few weeks ago, but otherwise we’ve heard hardly a peep from the Baccarat Hotel and Residences, Starwood Capital’s and Tribeca Associates’ in-progress Midtown crystal palace. Perhaps that will change now that, according to a press release, sales have officially begun! The 50-story tower includes 61 apartments and … Continued
The first name in luxury crystal now wants to be the ritziest name in city real estate. Baccarat, which has been making its namesake glass since the days of Louis XV, is launching a hotel and condo complex in a sleek 50-story tower on W. 53rd St. “Guests and residents (will) admire the company’s artisanship … Continued
Located in the under-development King Abdullah Financial District in Riyadh, this futuristic complex by SOM provides a multipurpose event hall with operable walls, a 600-seat auditorium with full lecture and cinema support, and a digital forum’ approach that allows all venues to be internally and externally networked. The conference rooms are clad in electrochromic glass … Continued
Originally derived from the Greek katholikos, the word catholic means universal, or pertinent to all. If modern architecture is defined by abstraction, the Cathedral of Christ the Light in Oakland, California, designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), is abstract in the most catholic sense of the term. The 250,000-square-foot church complex, with its distinguishable … Continued
Under his watch, New York City has required food chains to post calorie counts, eliminated trans fats from restaurants and fought unsuccessfully to limit the size of a soda. Still, even as his days in office are numbered, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg continues his campaign against obesity, this time by urging New Yorkers to take … Continued
On the morning of September 11, 2001, Bill Baker, a structural engineer with the architecture firm Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (SOM), was at his office in downtown Chicago. SOM is the undisputed leader in skyscraper design, and, at least on the engineering side, Baker is its undisputed king. In the past 30 years, he has … Continued
A 33-story Makati office tower that uses the same sustainable technology being used in the Freedom Tower in New York puts the Philippines in the green world map. The Zuellig Building, sheathed in 28,000 square meters of floor-to-ceiling low-emissivity glass, joins the ranks of the world’s most state-of-the-art, environment-friendly buildings like the Bank of America … Continued