As reported on Wired.
BY NATHAN HURST
New York by Gehry, New York City
Pritzker Prize-winning architect Frank Gehry went residential for the first time on his tower at 8 Spruce Street, completed in 2011 just outside the financial district in New York City. The tallest apartment building in the western hemisphere (for now) at 870 feet, the New York by Gehry incorporates the architect’s iconic curved steel exterior, rippling and reflective, like a wave in the sky.
In addition to pricey apartments — upwards of $40,000 a month for penthouses — the bottom floors of the tower houses a public school. The building’s design is meant to make residents feel they could step right out into space, and from afar, the wavy metal has the same effect on the eyes.
Top photo: Courtesy of Gehry Partners, LLP
Bottom photo: dbox
Wageningen Campus, Atlas Building, Netherlands
Like a big, square, beetle, Wageningen University’s Atlas Building is primarily supported by its exoskeleton. The concrete latticework reduces the need for pillars on the inside, and the building contains a large, open atrium with footbridges between floors. Completed in 2007, Atlas was also built with convertible labs, so it can be reconfigured internally as its occupants’ needs change. Designed by Rafael Vinolly Architects andOeverZaaijer Architecture and Urbanism, the building houses Wageningen’s Water and Climate Center, Soil Group, and Environmental Sciences Group. as well as a massive, hanging globe of the Earth, fittingly.
Top photo: Courtesy of Rafael Vinoly Architects;
Bottom photo: Courtesy Flickr/Erik van Ravenstein
Mikimoto Building, Tokyo
The pink, spontaneous exterior of Toyo Ito’s Mikimoto Building in Tokyo is a spontaneous-seeming design that hides a complicated structural scheme. The windows, laid out to look like random chunks were cut from the building, belie the atypical structure; because some windows curl around the building’s corners, there are no supporting columns where there should be. To keep the inside open, Ito used steel plates, filled with concrete and welded together for the walls. The resulting structure, nine stories high with a narrow 2,500-square-foot footprint, was completed in 2005 as headquarters for Mikimoto Pearl company.
Photo: Toshihiro Oimatsu/Flickr
Bank of Georgia (nee Soviet Ministry of Roads), Tbilisi, Georgia
The Soviets were not known for comfortable or ornamental architecture, and the Bank of Georgia headquarters is neither of those. But despite being a series of massive, stacked concrete blocks (or perhaps, because of that), it is an interesting adaptation of its period’s stark, square style.
Built in 1975 as the Soviet Ministry of Roads and sold to the bank in 2007, the Tetris-like structure is actually 18 stories high and 44,000 square feet. Like many examples of constructivist architecture, its blocky, three-dimensional form is almost a variation on an industrial bunker, but re-imagined to allow a forest to grow underneath. Giorgi Chakhava was in the envious position of being both minister of highway construction and architect, and with Zurab Jalaghania, he was able to both follow and expand beyond typical Soviet brutalism.
Photo: Matt Bateman/Flickr
Marin County Civic Center, San Rafael, California
Frank Lloyd Wright buildings are often tucked subtly into their landscape. The Marin County Civic Center, though, is harder to hide. But in spite of the bright blue roof and long, obtuse-angled design, it’s still not one of his better known buildings. (Though it has offered inspiration to pop culture figures from George Lucas(PDF) to Dr. Dre.)
Started in 1960 — the year after Wright’s death — the Civic Center, like Wright’s other creations, integrates architecture into the landscape. Now a National Historic Landmark, the center consists mainly of two long halls (880 feet and 580 feet) connected by a rotunda with a tall gold spire. It was the famous architect’s last and largest project.
Top photo: Jay Galvin/Flickr. Bottom photo: Galileo55/Flickr
The Shard, London
Pritzker prize-winning architect Renzo Piano designed The Shard as an irregular pyramid with a glass exterior, evoking a shard of glass. At 1,016 feet, it’s the tallest building in the European Union, about the height of the New York Times Building (also designed by Piano). But The Shard is more than just a pretty facade — it’s urban planning embodied in architecture. Opened in July, 2012, it houses offices, apartments, restaurants, and a 5-star hotel. The concept, developed by Sellar Property, was to integrate a “vertical city” into the node of London’s transportation system, located in the London Bridge district nearly on top of the busy train terminal there. The Shard was named as a finalist for Design Museum’s Architecture of the Year 2012, and The View from The Shard will open the 68th through 72nd floors to tourists starting in February.
Photo: Tom Godber/Flickr
GT Tower, Seoul
In addition to a dance fad, Seoul’s Gangnam district is responsible for some interesting architecture, not least Consort Architects‘ wavy Garak Tower East, completed in 2011. There’s no GT West, yet, but the 31-story East tower was designed to recall the form of traditional Korean pottery. The shape isn’t just trippy; the way the facade is aligned helps allow natural light to reach deep inside the building.
Photo: Courtesy of Consort Architects
CCTV Tower, Beijing
The 768-foot-tall CCTV building became the new headquarters for China Central Television — the government-run television network — when it was completed in 2009. Architects from OMA designed its rough donut shape as a three-dimensional alternative to traditional skyscrapers, as though two had bent at 90-degree angles to meet in the middle. A grid of tubes, designed by engineering firm Arup and visible on the exterior, help brace the 75-meter cantilever.
Photo: Dmitry Foronov/Wikimedia
Gateway Towers, Singapore
Completed in 1990, the trapezoidal shape of I.M. Pei‘s Gateway Towers in Singapore create an optical illusion when viewed from certain angles — the 37-story office buildings appear strangely two-dimensional.