As neighbourhood disputes go, this one must command greater combined wealth on the part of its combatants than any in New York’s history of bitter arguments.
One on side of the catfight stands a group of residents in the Upper East Side, a neighbourhood of bankers, professionals and old money where per capita income is among the highest in America. On the other side are some of the city’s best known names from the worlds of American arts, fashion and commerce.
And in the middle of the two stand the British architect Norman Foster and his senior partners and their plan to build a 30-storey tower on top of a 1940s building in the middle of the Upper East Side.
Under the architects’ plans, the glass tower would sit above a flat roofed block built in 1947 in Madison Avenue, originally as a Sotheby’s auction house. The artists’ impressions show the tower’s bold vertical lines rising in stark contrast to the low-rise buildings around it, which Foster argued at a recent public meeting was in tune with the neighbourhood’s ”tradition of radicalism”.
The public consultation over the proposed building closed on Tuesday night, later than expected; it had to be extended twice, such was the intensity of feeling. Several public meetings were packed with the neighbourhood’s well-heeled occupants.
Illustrious friends
The site developer, Aby Rosen, a German-born businessman who owns several other important buildings in Manhattan, including Mies van der Rohe’s Seagram Building, has made a last-ditch attempt to swing support behind the Foster proposal. He has mobilised his illustrious circle of friends — all upper Eastsiders themselves. As a collector of modern art himself, with about 800 works to his name, Rosen is very well connected.
Among the new flag wavers for the Foster plans rounded up by Rosen are Anna Wintour, editor of Vogue magazine and New York’s fashion supremo. She wrote a letter in favour of the planned tower, arguing ”I have to say that I applaud Mr Rosen’s vision for this site”.
The artist Jeff Koons, whose own works are to be found within the Rosen collection, spoke in favour of the design at two public meetings, while the art dealer Larry Gagosian and modernist architect Richard Meier have written supportive letters. Other celebrated backers include Betsy Bloomingdale, an heir of the store, Ronald Perelman, the Revlon chairperson, worth $7-billion, and Dr Patricia Wexler, a celebrity dermatologist (skin being taken very seriously on the Upper East Side).
The Landmarks Preservation Council — the US equivalent of English Heritage which must decide whether to grant permission for the tower — is being pulled in the opposite direction by local and city-wide groups. They say the Foster designs are out of step with the small scale townhouses in the area. ”We are vehemently against it,” said Seri Worden of Friends of the Upper East Side Historic District. ”It is probably the most brash proposal we have ever seen.”
The city-wide Historic Districts Council was even less restrained in its use of language. ”An atrocity,” was how its director Simeon Bankoff described the plans. ”It flies in the face of any concept of preservation. Rosen is trying to parlay star power into an inappropriate proposal.” Asked about Wintour’s support for it, he replied : ”That’s nice. That’s great, Anna.”
The Madison Avenue project represents the first major hurdle for Norman Foster and his partners since they took Manhattan by storm a few years ago. The firm’s New Hearst building, a shimmering lattice of glass and steel on 57th Street and Eighth Avenue, which opened last month, has received lavish acclaim. The partnership is also involved in the rebuilding of Ground Zero and has put forward plans for a tower just behind the Seagram building.
Battle royale
Brandon Haw, the senior partner leading the Madison Avenue project, said the reason it had ignited such passions was because it begged basic questions about the future of the Upper East Side. He said it was a ”battle royale”, adding that ”the debate is fundamental: do you allow change to happen while ensuring that quality is retained, as in our scheme, or do you cast the neighbourhood in aspic in which case it will wither and die.”
”If the area doesn’t continue to champion innovation it will turn itself into a museum piece,” Haw said.
Recently, the architect Renzo Piano designed a nine-storey extension to the nearby Whitney museum. However, it became bogged down in planning disputes and, though it finally won approval, its construction is in doubt. That is an ominous precedent for the star-studded advocates of Foster’s building. They must wait until early next year for the Landmark Preservation Council to give its ruling.
Britons abroad
British embassy, Washington
Edwin Lutyens designed the embassy and ambassador’s residence in Washington, which was built in 1928. He conceived it in the style of an English country house of the Queen Anne period, with red brick and stone dressing and a series of tall chimneys. Over the years since then a succession of additions to the building have been made.
Sackler Museum, Harvard University
The postmodernist, James Stirling, was asked to design an extension to the Fogg, Harvard’s oldest art museum. The Sackler museum houses collections of Asian, Islamic, and Later Indian art. It is a large rectangular building with two concrete cylinders marking the entrance.
Ground Zero
British architects have designed two of the four towers that will replace the twin towers of the World Trade Centre destroyed in the attacks on September 11 2001. Norman Foster’s partnership has designed the second tower, which will stand beside the centrepiece Freedom Tower. The third tower has been commissioned from Richard Rogers — which represents a form of reunion for the two leading British architects, who used to work together when they first set out in the profession.
Yale University
The London-based firm Hopkins Architects has been chosen by Yale University to design a new environmentally sustainable home for its School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. The $27-million building is expected to be finished in 2008. The firm, founded by Michael and Patty Hopkins, was chosen for its reputation for expertise in designing low carbon emission buildings. – Guardian Unlimited Â