Starchitect of the moment Bjarke Ingels is working on plenty of high-profile projects throughout the city, including a skyscraper for the Hudson Yards complex and a High Line-hugging apartment building. And there may soon be another to add to that list: YIMBY revealed several renderings of 2 Penn Plaza designed by Ingels's firm BIG, allegedly created for Vornado Realty Trust, which owns the building.
Vornado has not been shy about its plans to transform the hulking, drab 2 Penn Plaza, as part of the larger plan to revamp the area around Penn Station. The Real Deal recently reported that the development firm wants to combine 1 and 2 Penn Plaza in to one enormous, 4.2 million-square-foot megaproject, and that part of that would involve "re-skinning" the building to give it a more modern look.
BIG's conceptual design seems to fit into that plan: the shape and size of the building is largely unchanged, but the exterior would be clad in glass. The ground level would get the biggest transformation: True to Ingels's penchant for quirky designs, a set of panels would fan out from the tower itself in an undulating pattern, while the glass-enclosed base would hold retail, as well as space for advertisements. There are two different concepts, but the essential idea remains the same in each.
So this could be a thing! And however odd it may appear at first glance, there's no denying that pretty much anything is better than the current Penn Plaza configuration. Curbed has reached out to BIG and Vornado for comment, and will update with any new information.
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