A building too tall
A Timeless View From the Cloisters Faces a Modern Intrusion – the view across the Hudson from the Cloisters a branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art that makes you feel you’re in medieval Europe, is being threatened by a 143 foot tall headquarters building for LG Electronics that’s being designed by HOK.
After John D. Rockefeller Jr. donated land for the Cloisters museum in northern Manhattan, he went a step further in the 1930s and bought the cliffs across the Hudson River in New Jersey to preserve the museum’s pristine view of the Palisades.
Without modifications, the top stories of the LG building as currently designed would be visible above the tree line, bringing a Cloisters visitor right back into the present. A lot of effort is being put into persuading LG to take this into account and redesign the building with this point of view in mind. Surely there’s a way to accomodate the company’s business goals and as well as this bit of visual poetry.
Reminds me of Alexander Dunkel’s work as described in this previous post. Thanks, Harold, for forwarding the NYTimes article!