Fresh Hot Architecture: I ♥ NY

We may have been a few months late, but we finally made it to NYC. A roadtrip to New York was a great way to spend the last Friday of winter break. First, a post on everything up to MOMA and later a post on MOMA!

Our visits to fresh hot architecture in the Big Apple included:

The Apple store on Fifth avenue for some trendy fresh hotness. What better way to say "we're apple, we're hip, and we want your money" than a giant apple logo floating in a glass box. Thank you Bohlin Cywinski Jackson. For more info check LOISOS + UBBERLOHDE (the constultant's page) and BCJ's own page.

Pinkberry, where frozen yogurt has never been so fresh hot. According to wikipedia, the first store was opened in 2005 by Shelly Hwang and Young Lee. Apparently, Young lee is an architect, and although I couldn't not find anything concrete saying he was responsible for some the chain's interior design trademarks, it's probably a safe assumption. Here's an interesting article on about "Crackberry" as fanboys call it, the "phenomena" of the frozen yogurt wars at CNN.

Lever House, because it was fresh hot in it's day (some day in 1952 to be exact) and was next to the Seagram building. Sorry Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, we don't really like Mies that much more than you, the Seagrams building was just a more noticeable landmark because of it's height. Providing the boulevard with it's first glass curtain wall (leaverhouse.com) the Leaver House is great example of the application of high modernism and the international style ( greatbuildingsonline.com).

The Seagram building. Effin' Mies. Erected from '54 to '58, piloti and all, Mies' sky scraper clearly reflects his ideas of celebrating the structure of a sky scraper rather than covering it up with "a chaos of meaningless and trivial forms." (Mies' own words atgreatbuildings.com) The dark Bronze of the Seagram building truly does give it an attractive drama when compared to the buildings around it compared to the buildings around it. Although, the plaza around it seemed a bit sparse or unbalanced do to the fountain and plants crowding the 53rd st. side of the building.

interesting places we passed by:

The Citicorp Center

Unfortunatley, I can't remember the name of this successful plaza at the moment, but I will update once I figure it out. Yes, I know, the pic does not depict a successful public plaza, but it is January after all.