Reply With Quotebest i can say is this building fits right in with the rest of dull & sterile bpc.
ps -- for those who like slimmer half-curve buildings, hang on. we are getting one downtown with the nobu hotel. no?
A New Goldman Sachs Headquarters Sneaks Into the Lower Manhattan Skyline
By DAVID W. DUNLAP
Published: August 24, 2008
With all the talk about what has not been built around ground zero, little attention is paid to what has: a 43-story investment bank headquarters where 11,000 people will be working next year.
That suits Goldman Sachs fine.
Famously averse to publicity, Goldman has said almost nothing about the $2.4 billion headquarters it is building in Battery Park City, cater-corner from the new 1 World Trade Center tower, since the project was announced three years ago. Though the firm will fill the tower from top to bottom, including six vast trading floors, its name will appear nowhere on the building, which will simply be called 200 West Street.
Only by accident has the building been in the news at all. In December, seven tons of metal studs fell as they were being hoisted by a crane.
Robert Woo, an architect with Adamson Associates International, one of the firms involved with the project, was seriously injured. He remains paralyzed from the waist down. In May, a piece of steel fell 18 stories onto a nearby ball field. No one was hurt.
Now that the steel framework has reached its full 739-foot height and the building has become an undeniable presence on the Lower Manhattan skyline, Goldman has permitted a peek into the headquarters and how it was designed.
Leading the architectural team is Henry N. Cobb, 82, a founding partner of Pei Cobb Freed & Partners. After nearly 60 years living and working in New York, Mr. Cobb finally got to design his first Manhattan building. But you would not know it by looking at his firm’s Web site, where the Goldman Sachs headquarters — excuse us, 200 West Street — is not promoted on any list of projects. (Yes, Goldman insists on that level of discretion.)
The commission is unusually collaborative. Pei Cobb Freed and Adamson are working with Preston Scott Cohen, SHoP Architects, Ken Smith Landscape Architect, Piet Oudolf, Office dA, Architecture Research Office, Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg Architects, Gensler, and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, each of which has charge of some facet of the building.
“The premise is that each of these diverse talents will cause the other to do their best work,” said Timur Galen, the head of corporate services and real estate for Goldman Sachs, who is an architect himself. The group was selected to mix experienced firms with newly developing ones.
Mr. Cobb said he had never worked on a project with so many collaborators but believed it was a fruitful approach. “No matter how skillful,” he said in an interview last week, “it’s fundamentally wrong to put 11,000 people in a building that has been shaped by one sensibility.”
The 2.1 million-square-foot building was shaped not only by aesthetics, but by zoning and design controls. One key restriction, to preserve riverfront views from the World Financial Center, severely limited how far the tower could extend to the southwest. Rather than render this setback as an angular slice, Mr. Cobb turned it into a gentle curve — after convincing Goldman executives that work stations would fit more efficiently into a curved floor plan.
He also incorporated angular incisions in the building facade that follow the diverging angles of Vesey Street, which bounds the site on the south, and Murray Street, which bounds it on the north.
The cuts and the curve help keep the tower from looking like a cereal box, Mr. Cobb said, and give it a form “shaped entirely by its concern for the external context.”
Another important zoning restriction, limiting the southernmost end of the building to 140 feet in height, all but guaranteed that the elevator core would have to be on the north end.
That means the elevators are almost 400 feet from the main entrance, at Vesey and West Streets. “The problem was how to make this unavoidable walk interesting and eventful, and not seen as a nuisance,” Mr. Cobb said. The West Street passageway will have an 80-foot-long mural on one side and 20-foot-high windows on the other, meaning the artwork will be visible to the public.
The public will also be able to see the outside of the free-standing 350-seat oval auditorium on the ground floor, recalling somewhat a Richard Serra sculpture.
The heart of the building, however, will be what Mr. Cobb called a kind of living room for Goldman on the 10th through 12th floors, where exercise, dining and meeting areas will be linked by a sky lobby and a sweeping three-story stairway — well out of public view.
Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company
best i can say is this building fits right in with the rest of dull & sterile bpc.
ps -- for those who like slimmer half-curve buildings, hang on. we are getting one downtown with the nobu hotel. no?
Last edited by meesalikeu; August 25th, 2008 at 03:58 AM.
From some vantage points, it looks like two or three boxes.The cuts and the curve help keep the tower from looking like a cereal box, Mr. Cobb said, and give it a form “shaped entirely by its concern for the external context.”
My biggest complaint is that even though the building might appear as filler from the Hudson River, it isn't. It sits on a prominent site, and is visible for miles up Route 9A, a front row skyscraper in the Downtown Skyline. Or that view above, which will be permanent from the new park on Canal and Varick.
Keyword...outside.The public will also be able to see the outside of the free-standing 350-seat oval auditorium on the ground floor, recalling somewhat a Richard Serra sculpture.
Two acres of land, and the public doesn't get to use one square foot of it, not even outside-entry retail along the passageway between the building and the hotel.
Last edited by ZippyTheChimp; August 25th, 2008 at 01:02 PM.
No entry to the movie theaters? or DSW Shoes? And the restaurants?
WIll GS take over all that commerical space within the Embassy Suites Hotel?
Well, this building is outside the proposed security cordon (which looks identical to the Daily News' April 6, 2008 map NYPD said was "exaggerated").
Has the "36-page plan for security" regarding the "Lower Manhattan Security Initiative" been made public?
Well, it's not exactly God's gift to architecture, but look: most of the big boxes on 6th Avenue aren't exactly masterpieces, either. Tom Wolfe called it the "Rue de Regret" in one particularly uncharitable phrase. But there is no denying it's one of the most spectacular boulevards in the world, simply because of the effect all those nondescript boxes create when their stacked next to each other, row after row. The Goldman is helping transform West Street into another grand boulevard, simply by being there.
West St will never approach the look of 6th Ave.
Streetwalls on Manhattan Avenues average 100 feet apart. West St is 250 feet wide.
GS is the end of the line on the western side, and there are large gaps on the eastern side (WTC memorial, BMCC).
West St is generally not walkable.
No, West Street will be a spectacular new West Street... a new Champs Elysees, as Pataki put it, once the its transformation into a tree lined boulevard is completed. And this new tower will add to the overall look in a positive way.Originally Posted by ZippyTheChimp
Are my facts incorrect?
I've already experienced the "transformation" south of the BBT. Not impressed.
Potato Head's proposal for a Grand Boulevard along West Street was rejected. The "promenade" has been completed -- and rarely has more than a dozen pedestrians at a time along its full length from Rector down to Battery Park.
Come on.
Hey, a guy can hope
I wasn't the one that came up with that line...
Anyway... it should be a pretty spectacular boulevard once the planned improvements are done, the WTC restored, and the Goldman Sachs completed...
I thought only one part was completed, and that more are to come.
http://www.lowermanhattan.info/const...ent_66469.aspx
West Street Promenade Segment 2
On June 1st, 2007, New York State Department of Transportation’s (SDOT) much-anticipated revamp of West Street (Route 9A) is kicking off. The project extends the design of Promenade South, which rebuilt the sidewalks, roadways, and crossings south of West Thames Street, as well as renovated the Battery Park Underpass entrance.
The West Street Promenade “Segment 2” project will improve the boulevard between West Thames and Chambers Street. Some of its elements include restoring West Street to eight traffic lanes, updating utilities, landscaping, improving at-grade crossings, removing or modifying pedestrian bridges, and raising the road to match the World Trade Center’s (WTC) elevation.
SDOT also will modify the approach to the West Street Underpass that links to the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, making the tube reversible to accommodate rush-hour traffic.
Work on “Segment 2” of the West Street Promenade gets underway in mid-May 2007, bringing welcome traffic and utility improvements to the boulevard, along with open pedestrian plazas and green spaces.
The New York State Department of Transportation (SDOT) is executing the $189 million project, which extends the design of Promenade South to the area between West Thames and Chambers Street.
One of SDOT’s primary goals for the project is restoring West Street to eight traffic lanes, as it was before September 11, 2001. Crews also will raise the road grade approximately six feet between Liberty and Vesey Streets, to match the higher elevation of the World Trade Center (WTC) -- a vital part of linking the open promenade to the WTC Memorial plaza.
To enhance pedestrian safety, the work scope will improve crossings at grade along West Street and modify the Liberty and Rector Street bridges. The project also includes the removal of the temporary Vesey Street bridge in early 2009.
Other enhancements include updating underground utilities and other infrastructure, installing new roadway and sidewalk pavement, and incorporating new “urban design features” like a tree-lined promenade along West Street’s sidewalks and in the median, as well as new storefronts and pedestrian plazas.
SDOT also will modify the approach to the West Street Underpass that links to the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, making the tube reversible to accommodate rush-hour traffic.
In Battery Park City, the park located between West Thames and Albany Streets will be renovated, providing more room for community gardens and a basketball court.
SDOT planners are working closely with the Port Authority and the WTC Memorial Foundation to build the “new” West Street. In particular, the teams are coordinating construction of the underground pedestrian concourse that will connect the WTC Transportation Hub with the World Financial Center/Winter Garden. Excavation for that concourse already is underway in Battery Park City.
Close coordination also is taking place for the creation of the new Vehicular Security Center at the WTC’s southwest corner. Other adjacent projects are factoring into the construction plan as well, with the Lower Manhattan Construction Command Center (LMCCC) overseeing their coordination. The LMCCC also is helping SDOT adhere to environmental performance commitments during the project.
Segment 2 work will take place in four stages: West Thames to Albany Street, Albany to Vesey Street, Vesey to Murray Street, and Murray to Chambers Street. Three lanes of traffic in each direction will be maintained during daily rush hours throughout the project but will be reduced to two lanes each way midday (10 a.m. to 3 p.m.) and over nights and weekends.
It is also expected that SDOT’s contractor, Tully Construction, will have to temporarily shift traffic lanes and sidewalks during the project. However, advance community notification, signage, and detours are key parts of the construction program. To help alleviate traffic congestion, SDOT will assign traffic enforcement agents and maintain six lanes of traffic and the West Street bikeway/walkway at all times.
The project is expected to be substantially complete by the middle of 2009, with its official completion scheduled for the end of 2009.
Last edited by CoolCzech; August 25th, 2008 at 09:44 PM.
That's the revised version -- Goldman Sachs will get its own little private zone right in front of their building.
This will in no way be the Grand Boulevard proposed way back when.
But nevertheless, how lovely it will be to kick back in an "open pedestrian plaza" with all those cars heading into the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel. Folks will be lined up for blocks (they'll need something to do while waiting to re-board their buses after visiting the subterranean chambers at the WTC).
No doubt it looks far more attractive from CT than it will from NYC
It's not a boulevard, it's a Hiway.
There is, however, a great park along the river ...
None of it is like anything in France.
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