Luxurious building complex by Pei Cobb Freed & Partners, Architects use the hourglass as a leitmotif and were rewarded with a Tucker Design Award
The term Corporate Architecture implies that a landlord is erecting a complex with a high recognition factor to attract attention or to raise awareness in the interest of marketability. This type of architecture can often be encountered in financial capitals world-wide. This is due in part to the fact that real estate prices are at a premium there and builders under particular pressure to perform in order to achieve a return on their investment.
Case in point and an exceptional example of the aforementioned is the 7 Bryant Park High Rise in midtown Manhattan after modernization and refurbishment. It was distinguished with a Tucker Design Award 2016. The biannual competition is sponsored by the Building Stone Institute (BSI) which recently merged with the Marble Institute of America (MIA) to form „The Natural Stone Institute“.
Allow us to briefly introduce the building. A special publication of the BSI-Trade Magazine says all there is to say about the implementation of natural stone.
Pei Cobb Freed & Partners’ architecture is determined by its key theme in its unadulterated form. Richard Wagner brought this form of music composition to the peak of perfection: each of the key figures in his operas is tied to a particular melody which comes into play when the storybook calls for accentuation of the figure. The melody is then adapted to the situation.
Leitmotif of 7 Bryant Park is the hour glass. Geometrically speaking it is composed of two cones or pins meeting head to head at their narrowest point.
By transposing the shape to one outer edge of the building, the complex suddenly morphs into something magical.
But that’s not all: the foyer is brimming with allusions to the hour-glass pins beginning with two-dimensional triangles in the intarsia flooring and continuing in a third dimension with convex shapes up the walls.
The hour-glass is repeated a number of times throughout the reception area and foyer providing access to unique world.
An eye-catcher: the hour-glass shapes adorning the elevator doors where the cones take on the appearance of arrowheads pointing upward and downward as if in joyous anticipation of a ride.
The address, too, picks up on the design incorporating the number 7 into the triangular shape e.g. on the wall behind the reception desk as well as on the website.
Moca Creme and Moleanos Limestone were implemented and supplied by Urmal Company of Portugal as well as Calacata Caldia Marble and Jet Mist Black Granite supplied by Marmi e Graniti d’Italia Sicilmarmi). (pebe)
MIA+BSI: The Natural Stone Institute
Marmi e Graniti d’Italia Sicilmarmi
Photos: MIA+BSI: The Natural Stone Institute
(15.03.2017, USA: 03.15.2017)