THE ART OF THE AERIE

摘要

I'm walking pown Fifth Avenue, approaching Grand Army Plaza. It's March and the bare trees offer a clear view of the tall buildings on the other side of Central Park. The skyline from this vantage point in Manhattan is newly dominated by One57, Christian de Portzamparc's skinny 75-story tower, under construction on West 57th Street. This oligarchs' aerie will be the tallest residential building in the city, but with its curved top, it's about as poetic as an elongated Braun toothbrush. Most of the tall buildings in my view are equally banal. The tops of the two dark towers of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill's Time Warner Center, adorned with a few mysterious slots, are as blankly expressive as Darth Vader's helmet; Norman Foster, Hon. FAIA's Brancusi-like Hearst Tower is abruptly truncated when it reaches the 46th floor; and the less said about the pedestrian Trump International Hotel and Tower, the better. The silhouette of Robert A.M. Stern, FAIA's 15 Central Park West is the best of the bunch, but its rather pallid rendition of a prewar apartment building doesn't exactly make my heart sing.