For all the new development angst that floats on the breeze, let's give credit where it's due: thus far, 2007 is shaping up as a year of fascinating facades. The latest is the rendering for the facade at 166 Perry Street, which comes to us courtesy of CityRealty, which found it in an, uh, book. (As you may recall, 166 Perry is a conversion of a former parking garage that faced community opposition a few years back but ultimately got approval to convert and add two stories.)
Regarding that facade:
Renderings of the Asymptote design appeared US, Architecture in the United States, by Philip Jodidio, published last month by Taschen... Mr. Jodidio noted in his book that Asymptote calls its project "Surfaced Space." He provides a quote from Rashid that the design "is in many ways simultaneously antidotal as it is a formal and tectonic playing off of the Meier projects." "More specifically, he continues, 'Asymptote's approach primarily emerged from a serge for an apropos musical assembly of glass and geometry whereby a play of reflections, atmosphere and surface produce an enveloped of effects that would weld the disparities of brick, ornament and stoops with glass, smoothness and constant plays of surface and space, resulting in another definition of elegance possibly transcending that of the high modernist traditions and minimalist aspirations expressed in the adjacent towers and the quaintness and scale of domesticity that the building is situated in.'"
Um, sure!
· Latest wrinkle in unusual facades at 166 Perry Street [CityRealty]
· A 'Playful' Condo in Meier's Backyard [NYTimes, 10/05]