Not exactly land use law (in any earthly sense), but I really like this.
Part of “Compass to the Northern Sky,” Municipal Prints Co.
And stargazing isn’t completely unrelated to the art of town planning: Vitruvius advocated reference to celestial bodies when orienting the layout of new Roman towns.
Eight Spruce Street, NYC.
Frank Gehry has designed a significant new building at Eight Spruce Street, New York City. The sinuous, 76-story tower, featuring curtained walls, bay windows, and a structural frame of reinforced concrete, is now nearing completion. Situated just between the Brooklyn Bridge and the Beaux-Arts canyons of Wall Street, the development is slated to be mostly rental flats, with a mixed-use element near street level.
Today, I had a chance to see the project up close. It is quite stunning. Its scale illustrates the spatial possibilities that are feasible on just a small canvas of urban land. In an interview last October with the WSJ, Gehry explained how he wanted the building’s design to complement the architecture of the surrounding cityscape. He has largely succeeded. One disappointment: in contrast to the silvery, free-flowing form of the tower that comprises most of the structure, the street level floors that reach to the traditional build-to lines are composed of horribly mundane walls made of beige brick.
Here are some snapshots that I took today with a BlackBerry. The building is essentially done, but work is ongoing. Next time, I’ll try to get inside.
Amazing documentary. More about the film makers here.
Tamara de Lempicka. “New York”. 1929.
The Alclyde. West 94th/CPW. Source: NYPL
This is a great archive from the New York Public Library: floor plans, footprints, drawings, and details of classic New York City apartment buildings, all in original, color lithographs from the turn of the 20th century. The bulk of the buildings are in Harlem, Washington Heights, and on the Upper West Side, but the collection goes as far downtown as the twenties, and as far up as the Grand Concourse. Note the parlors and chambers, rather than living rooms and bedrooms, in these units; and the fact that even modest apartments were designed to have living space for domestic help. I found this cache during research for a paper about efficient land use in Late-Victorian New York City.