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Could Frank Gehry and Santiago Calatrava be designing Hudson Yards towers?

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Let the speculation begin

Max Touhey

A gaggle of noteworthy architects are due to put their stamp on the Hudson Yards megaproject, but if the Wall Street Journal is to be believed, two bona fide starchitects may be joining their ranks.

WSJ reports that “a person familiar with the matter” claims that Santiago Calatrava and Frank Gehry have been tapped to design buildings for the megaproject’s second phase, due to rise over the west side rail yards (stretching between 30th to 33rd streets from Eleventh to Twelfth avenues).

There’s little information beyond that, but 2018 is the year that co-developers Related Companies and Oxford Properties Group are due to start work on the platform that will cover the west side yards—i.e., the first of many steps toward making the megaproject’s second phase a reality.

And it’s fair to assume that Hudson Yards’s second phase will have some big-name buzz attached to it: The architecture firms tapped for the first phase include Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, whose David Childs designed 35 Hudson Yards; Foster + Partners, which is working on 50 Hudson Yards; Kohn Pedersen Fox, which is behind several of phase one’s buildings; and Diller Scofidio + Renfro in collaboration with Rockwell Group, whose work will be found at 15 Hudson Yards and the Shed. (And let’s not forget Thomas Heatherwick, whose empty Vessel will rise at the center of the project.)

Despite their name recognition, Calatrava and Gehry have only a handful of completed New York City projects between them, including the $4 billion Oculus at the World Trade Center and Gehry’s twisty rental at 8 Spruce Street. Whether or not they’ll add more marquee buildings to their portfolios remains to be seen.