Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Thoughts on a View and Buildings


So today I was walking out of the Time Warner building – and I saw this view as I walked out of the building. This is one of the things I love about this city, it is still new enough that views pop out at me unexpectedly.
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This, by the by, is Colombus atop Colombus Circle, looking East along 59th / Central Park South.
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Once you get used to a place, you tend to overlook the local beauty. But today has nice weather, sunshine and so everything just looks a little cooler. And New York is still unexpectedly pretty to me every now and then. (effect New Yawk Accent for remainder of paragraph) I mean you sit in the subway and you want to strangle the guy next to you who WILL NOT SHUT UP!, and then you fight the nasty old ladies to cross the street (I got the LIGHT here!) and the moms with the double wide strollers in Whole Foods -oh my gawd, you wanna scream. Then you come out into the daylight and a scene like this. Well, I tell ya - it tears ya up. It does.
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By the way, the geography of this city is all vertical. I think it is interesting; the cool buildings in LA are mainly horizontal. See below, the Airport Theme Building, The Disney Concert Hall, The Getty Center, the Dorothy Chandler. They are designed to organically interact with people at a street level (you could say at a car level, should you wish to be dismissive).
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But the buildings in New York, the Flatiron, the Chrysler Building, The Empire State, they all interact at the macro level. You need to see them from a distance where they are impressive pieces of Corporate Dominance. Don’t get me wrong, they are also quite beautiful, but their very design is to impress – and those that don’t impress are supremely functional (how many workers can I get onto a single city block?).
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So for a person from LA, the view of New York from the front seat is dull (with the exception of Times Square which is like the Ginza, a monumental nod to visual overload). And vice versa, for someone from New York, the view of downtown LA is supremely unimpressive.
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It’s funny to me that the most organically inviting new buildings in New York are either condos or the IAC building (pictured). Designed by an Angelino (Frank Gehry) for and Angelino (Barry Diller and his Interactive Corporation) located in New York.

Or maybe just intersting to me.