Starchitect Bjarke Ingels’ W57 is getting pretty exciting the higher it grows. Photographer Iwan Baan took this aerial view below just last week. Ingels describes the structure like this;
“The Durst pyramid and the maze have something geometrically in common in that all the cross-sections of the pyramid are straight lines but it describes a hyperbolic paraboloid. Here all the cross-sections that you can see are perfectly straight lines but as a result, you almost describe these arches. It is a cone that has been subtracted from a cube. It’s this weird combination of something that is actually straight lines that then describes these curving geometries. Maybe we do have certain obsessions we can’t escape no matter what we do.”
OK. It’s certainly an odd location on West 57 and the river, right as the ramp enters the West Side Highway, backed by a giant Con Ed transfer station but the site-specific design responds on all sides. It’s rental on top, with retail at the base, so it will be interesting to see what it does to street life in the area. Right now even driving by it is exciting.
(Bottom photo, Iwan Baan; via Curbed)