These days street-savvy New Yorkers are wise to keep their eyes on the sky, particularly when in the vicinity of Cooper Union where one big mother of a crane looms overhead. But those skyward glances could mean that folks are missing the real show taking place down at eye level. The gang from Morphosis is giving NYers something amazing to look at where Cooper Union's new Academic Building is rising on the Bowery. As one construction worker said as we snapped a gazillion photos, "This building is one of a kind." And damn it if he ain't telling the truth!
At street level massive concrete columns thrust skywards, as if a bunch of big old guys were shoving them up through the sidewalk. The columns lean this way and that, meeting up in sharp angles beneath huge horizontal beams that seem to float above the street. All this will support nine stories of light-filled classrooms and studios, what the folks at Cooper Union are calling the "intersection of art, architecture and engineering." That's an apt description of what is going on all up and down the Bowery these days.
· CurbedWire: Cooper's Crane [Curbed]
· Projects: Cooper Union Academic Building [Morphosis website]
· New Academic Building [Cooper Union Builds]
· Previous Bowery Architecture Coverage [Curbed]
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