Paul Goldberger

This weekend, Paul Goldberger was on with Bob Garfield on NPR talking about a story he wrote in The New Yorker last year on the design of newsrooms. In the article, Goldberger talked about the cold feel to the Times newsroom, but he elaborated on that with Garfield. He said:  read more »

Back in early April, the Wall Street Journal reported that the undulating, glass-sheathed Sculpture for Living was looking like a white elephant. "[J]ust one condo has sold since September, leaving 15 of the 39 units empty," wrote The Journal.

This week, New York magazine looks at some possible reasons for the slow sales.

Was it Paul Goldberger's scathing New Yorker piece? (For those who forgot this critical takedown, Mr. Goldberger thankfully keeps it, like a trophy, on his website here).

Could it be the new fangled "condop?" Selling high-end units on a land-lease sure hasn't helped the Stanhope, either. (Third item down).

Or perhaps it's the neighborhood that's keeping away the super-swanky, downtown buyers--who may feel more at home in Tribeca--from dropping $5 or $10 million on an apartment. Perhaps they are a bit wary of the Sparks-drinking skateboarders or gloomy goth kids lingering around The Cube. Not to mention all those drunk NYU kids passing by late at night, or the not-so-spectacular views of the K-Mart across the street.

But maybe everything's actually alright in luxury real estate land. As Related VP David Wine tells the magazine: "[It's] a very big financial success."  read more »

He might be right. But it's not surprising that when the pace of sales doesn't live up to the hyperbolic marketing campaigns that go into so many new starchitect-designed buildings, it may just appear to be a failure (even though it could turn a profit in the long run).

- Michael Calderone

Remembering Jane Jacobs  read more »

Tomorrow night, architect Michael Graves will be speaking at the New School with Dean Paul Goldberger. It's the third in a series of talks that has already included artist Chuck Close and designer Bruce Mau.

For anyone looking for a bit more on Mr. Graves besides the famous Target teapots, The Observer profiled him last December, along with the remaining members of the New York Five. And Mr. Goldberger shows up there, too.  read more »

The full release for tomorrow's talk is after the jump.

Richard Meier gazed down through his round, black-framed glasses at a partially completed drawing, w  read more »

Last night at the New School’s Tishman Auditorium, Parsons dean Paul Goldberger conveniently recited a line from designer Bruce Mau’s Incomplete Manifesto for Growth: “Don't be cool. Cool is conservative fear dressed in black.” Wearing black pants and a button down shirt, Mr. Mau burst out laughing. "I know, I'm in a rut."

For almost 90 minutes, Mr. Mau discussed his collaborations with architects Rem Koolhaas and Frank Gehry (most recently on the InterActiveCorp. headquarters under construction in Chelsea), obsessive typography, Rotterdam, public space, and the catastrophe in New Orleans. There is a webcast available, but here are a few highlights:

BM: [Design] is a marginal activity. You need only go to Rotterdam to see what happens when it’s not. Suddenly, every building is attractive, and it’s terrible…. You end up with a kind of screaming ordinary, which is not very pleasant. Each building is just desperate for a 90 degree angle.”

BM: We have to get to a scale of design that we are a little bit reticent of. In Massive Change, we talk about what we are actually doing. It’s not utopian and it’s not futuristic. It’s what we are actually doing, and how we control the world now, and how we control nature and it’s capacities--sometimes successfully, sometimes catastrophically, and sometimes accidentally…. We certainly have an ambition that is comprehensive and universal.

BM: This happened with us in Seattle, which was a disaster. When we talked to Rem about how we would work, we had a fabulous… PG: The library? BM. Seattle Public Library. We had a fabulous and exciting, open collaboration about the future of the library in the 21st century. And we worked for several months on that basis. At some point, we met the people at the library who were very enthusiastic…. But they hired a managing firm. The managing firm came in and said, “We don’t have a line item for ‘open collaboration.'"  read more »

Parsons’ conversation series continues in the spring with fashion designer Donna Karan and architect (and “power geezer”) Michael Graves.

-Michael Calderone

…will design the second (or third, depending on how you count) tower at the World Trade Center site, Larry Silverstein announced today. It’s a move with clear benefits, as Foster is the best known of the three architects that Silverstein has chosen to do his buildings (Paul Goldberger just raved about the Hearst tower in The New Yorker this week) and the developer needs all the juice he can get as he fights to hold on to his development rights down there.

The building, bounded by Vesey, Fulton, Church and the remapped Greenwich Street, has been named 200 Greenwich, which helps erase memories of an awful day and also gives it a sort of Tribeca patina. It will be 65 stories and is supposed to open in 2011, a year after the Freedom Tower.  read more »

Also, Silverstein announced that 7 World Trade Center, which is to open next spring, has its first signed tenant, the New York Academy of Sciences, which will take the entire 40th floor. The academy will get 13½ months free rent, and bargained Silverstein down a bit from the $55 a square foot asking price to between $52 and $53, according to an informed source. Subtract also about $10 a square foot in Marshall Plan incentives, and an allowance for finishing the floor, and the lease is costing the Academy roughly $40 a square foot. Academy President Ellis Rubenstein, who said they negotiated late into Wednesday night and just signed the lease this morning, characterized the rent discounts as consideration for the fact that he will be bringing in other potential tenants because the academy is establishing a conference center there.

-Matthew Schuerman

Was anything timeless inside the New York Times Building?  read more »

Carolyn LeRoy pulled open the door to her father'sapartment.  read more »

Out here on the East End, a recent Monday was what seems to be turning out to be a more or less typi  read more »