My friends in New York tell me that if you want to sell a luxury residential building, you need a name brand architect. People care about architecture and it’s part of the buying process: “Oh, it’s a Herzog building.”
To that end, Toll Brothers City Living just released the following video for their 121 E 22nd project in New York. If you can’t see it below, click here . What’s notable, is that it is OMA’s first full building in New York. So the story is: star architect + first building in the city.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSQq8W8od9g?rel=0&w=560&h=315]
But there’s more. It’s almost unbelievable that, until now, OMA hadn’t designed and constructed a full building in New York. I reread this Dezeen article 5 times just to make sure I wasn’t missing something.
So much of Rem Koolhaas’ career (founding partner of OMA) is centered around New York City. In 1978, he published Delirious New York , where he both dissected and celebrated the city’s “culture of congestion.” Oysters at the downtown athletic club, anyone?
This book was so influential that I bet you’d be hard pressed to find an architect that doesn’t have it in their collection. I have his approximation of New York hanging on my wall. So this was clearly overdue. Kudos Toll Brothers City Living.
Note: OMA’s New York office is led by Shohei Shigematsu .