Interview with Costas Kondylis
by Carter B. Horsley
on 01-AUG-05
What do most of the city¿s major residential developers such as the Brodsky Group, Forest City Ratner, Glenwood Management, Jack Resnick & Sons, J. D. Carlisle Development Corporation, the LeFrak Organization, Pan Am Equities, The Related Companies, Rockrose Development Corporation, Larry Silverstein, Donald Trump, Vornado Realty Trust, the Witkoff Group and Donald Zucker have in common?
Costas Kondylis, the city¿s pre-eminent architect of high-rise residential buildings.
His portfolio now includes dozens of the city¿s snazziest ¿luxury¿ apartment towers ranging from Trump World Tower at 845 United Nations Plaza, to Mr. Trump¿s five towers along Riverside Boulevard facing the Hudson River, to the Grand Tier on Broadway facing the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts for Glenwood Management, to the Bromley at 225 West 83rd Street at Broadway for William Haines and The Bromley Companies, to the angled, high-tech Future at 200 East 32nd Street for Donald Zucker, to the Beekman Regent at 351 East 51st Street for Beekman International Center LLC, to the Grand Beekman for Alexico Management Group at 400 East 51st Street, to 1 Morton Square at 600 Washington Street for the J. D. Carlisle Development Corporation in TriBeCa, to 627 West 42nd Street, to Bridge Tower Place at 401 East 60th Street for the Brodsky Organization, to the Caroline at 56-74 West 23rd Street for Pan Am Equities, to The Capitol at 776 Sixth Avenue for The Adell Group and the Witkoff Group, to 200 Chambers Street for Jack Resnick & Sons, to the Horizon at 415 East 38th Street, Manhattan Place at 630 First Avenue and the Promenade at 530 East 76th Street all facing the East River for the Glick Organization, and to the Strathmore at 400 East 84th Street and the Monterey on the northwest corner of 96th Street and Third Avenue, both for The Related Companies.
His projects bear no specific ¿signature¿ style. ¿I managed not to get in trouble during the [simultaneous] construction of the Beekman Regent, the Grand Beekman and Trump World Tower [all within a couple of blocks of each other] because they had distinctly different characters and personalities.¿
He was also involved with the designs of Trump Plaza and the Savoy apartment building, diagonally across from one another at Third Avenue at 61st Street. The buildings are quite similar is size and massing and form an important ¿gateway¿ to the Upper East Side on Third Avenue.¿ ¿Given enough time, they are classics of that era with a certain amount of glitz,¿ he maintained.
Mr. Kondylis insists that he tries to be ¿neighborhood-friendly with a pleasant scale¿ and laughingly recalls that one critic said he designed ¿very aggressive buildings with a polite skin.¿ He maintains that he tries for ¿understated elegance¿ and thinks that a shiny entrance is like a brand logo, or the grill of an expensive car and is ¿perfectly alright.¿
¿I¿m for taller buildings, which are more environmentally sound, allow more density and more open space,¿ he declared. When asked to chose his favorite designs, he begged that like all fathers he loves his children all equally, but then added that Trump World Tower ¿is a true skyscraper in the best Miesian tradition; we kept it simple and I think it is very successful.¿ His second favorite is more of a surprise, 279 Central Park West for Sutton East Associates. The challenge, he said, was to blend a contemporary structure into the pre-war environment of Central Park West. The building has many setbacks.
Some of Kondylis¿s recent designs are sleek and Miesian like Trump World Tower, the city¿s tallest purely residential tower.
Some are angled with boldly colored facades like the Horizon and Manhattan Place and River Place 1 on West 42nd Street for Silverstein Properties. .
Some feature large curved sections like the Monterey at 175 East 96th Street for The Related Companies and 240 Riverside Boulevard at 72nd Street for the Trump Organization. While curves add considerably to the design costs of a project, they do not add that much to the total construction costs and are ¿tremendous¿ for design, Mr. Kondylis said. Curves can soften a building and make it stand out, he continued, adding that he likes Gwathmey-Siegel¿s recent design of a sinuously curved residential tower at 445 Lafayette Street at Astor Place.
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