Architect’s rendering of 53 W. 53rd Street—the “Tour Verre”
Photo: Ateliers Jean Nouvel
Why am I not surprised? While I was away in Japan (where I marveled at I.M. Pei‘s awe-inspiring Miho Museum and the “wow”-worthy Kansai International Airport Terminal on a manmade island in Osaka, which I later discovered had been designed by Renzo Piano), Jean Nouvel‘s MoMA Monster was getting beaten up at New York’s Landmarks Preservation Commission.
Colin Moynihan of the NY Times reports:
Neighbors, public officials and preservationists were among the people
who spoke out on Tuesday night [Apr. 8] against a proposal to build a skyscraper
in Midtown that, at 1,155 feet, would be about 100 feet taller than the
Chrysler Building.At a hearing held by the Landmarks Preservation Commission, some
opponents said the height and composition of the building would prevent
it from harmoniously fitting into its surroundings. Others said they
feared that the tower would reduce the access to light and air in the
neighborhood and contribute to street and sidewalk congestion….About 100 people attended the hearing, held at the preservation
commission’s downtown offices, and about 50 signed up to speak. By the
time that half of them had spoken, the tally was leaning heavily
against the project.
As I wrote here last November:
The neighbors and, hopefully, the City Planning Commission are not
going to stand for a 75-story look-at-me skyscraper on this cross
street.
The neighborhood’s Community Planning Board has already given the project, which would include new galleries for the Museum of Modern Art (previous owner of the land), a thumbs-down.
This hasn’t stopped Justin Davidson in New York Magazine from dismissing the strong opposition as “the opinions of a few malcontents with afternoon sunlight to protect.”
The project’s biggest booster, Times architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff, conspicuously failed to mention the above photo in his rundown yesterday of deceptive architectural renderings for proposed projects in New York. In November, I described it as “a manipulative photo making it appear that the new tower will be less tall that one next to it. Don’t believe it.”
Another conspicuous Nouvel-related journalistic omission was Arthur Lubow‘s failure to mention the French architect’s plans for the Louvre Abu Dhabi in the Pritzker-pegged hagiographic profile Lubow published on Apr. 6 in the NY Times Magazine. Was that a mere oversight, or is this desert project on quicksand?