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About One Madison Park, 23 East 22nd Street
One Madison Park is a dramatic and very slender residential skyscraper on the south side of Madison Square Park that was developer by Slazer Enterprises of New City, New York, and designed by Cetra/Ruddy.
The 47-story tower contains 90 residential condominiums and its form is somewhat similar to the proposed skyscraper at 80 South Street that was designed by Santiago Calatrava for Frank Sciame. That tower featured 10 four-story townhouses that were vertically stacked and separated by roof terraces. About the time that that project was announced, Mr. Calatrava, one of the world's most famous designers and engineers, was the subject of a major retrospective exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The 80 South Street project sparked great enthusiam for the future of Lower Manhattan despite widespread concerns and controversies at the time over the designs for the redevelopment of the World Trade Center site at Ground Zero.
The design of this residential tower has fewer "box" protrusions facing north and east and the protrusions are considerably less dramatic than Calatrava's. Furthermore, the "protrusions," which vary in height, do not represent multi-story residences as those at 80 South Street did. This tower has seven "pop-out" elements of four to six stories each on its north and east façades.
Although some observers were a bit concerned that this tower was impinging upon the "space" of the majestic Metropolitan Life Insurance Company tower at 1 Madison Avenue on the southeast corner of the avenue and 24th Street, other observers were impressed by its sleek facades and vertiginous verticality.
The project's celebrity ratcheted up many more notches, furthermore, when the developer unveiled its plans for the 22nd Street portion of the through-block project.
For that, the developer commissioned the Office of Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), which is headed by Rem Koolhaas, the author of "Delirious New York," one of the most famous books ever written about the city that was notable for its illustrations, which included a depiction of the Chrysler and Empire State Buildings resting together, exhausted but happy, on a bed.
OMA is best known in the United States for its sensational and very dramatic Central Library Building in Seattle.
OMA's 22nd Street design was startling and although much shorter than the residential tower facing Madison Square Park, it promised to be even more of a "double-take" structure for not only was it a "peek-a-boo" building that at first glance appeared to loom from behind the tower to take a look at the park but it also was cantilevered substantially to the east in what appeared to be a very remarkable feat of engineering.
OMA's proposed 24-story "back" building also was extremely notable for the "bottom" windows that it offered in the cantilevered floors that were perhaps not as potentially frightening as the glass platform over a cliff at the Grand Canyon that had been installed a few years earlier but certainly a terrific, is not terrifying conservation topic for the residents and their brave, teetering guests.
The OMA design was also unusual in that its lower and upper floors had higher ceiling heights than the middle of the building.
The Department of Buildings, however, approved an amendment to the building plan for 23 East 22nd Street June 18, 2009 that appears to have substantially lowered the height of the 24-story residential condominium tower planned by Slazer Enterprises to rise directly behind its tower.
The amendment was submitted by John Cetra of Cetra/Ruddy, Inc.
The amendment indicated but did not specify revisions in the number of floors and the number of dwelling units and the “schedule A” that lists the uses and number of units on each floor combined both buildings and indicated that some units were in the "north tower" that had 51 stories and some in the south tower whose exact height was not given but which had no apartments listed about the eighth floor. A curbed.com article indicated that the amended plans for the 22nd Street building were 11 stories in height but that was not indicated in the filed "schedule A" on the website of the Buildings Department. The article did note that "Cetra/Ruddy had designed an 11-story building for the site."
A June 22, 2009 article by Joey at curbed.com had the headline: "Arrested Development: Rem Put to Sleep on 22nd Street?" The article said that "Rumors have been flying for weeks about downsizing taking place at Koolhaas’s 24-story sister building..., but the reality appears even more dire than just taking some Rem off the top."
The Koolhaas designed was unveiled well after marketing had started for One Madison Park and both buildings were to have shared a lobby. A very dramatic sales office opened at 27 Mercer Street and it included large "models" of the cantilevered building lying on its side.
Mr. Koolhaas and OMA are widely regarded as one of the most original and important contemporary architects in the world whose completed and geometrically spectacular projects include the CCTV Headquarters in Beijing. In 1999, they designed a bold hotel for Ian Schrager at Cooper Square that was not developed. The sloping interiors of the Prada store on Broadway at Prince Street is another of their designs.
The base of 23 East 22nd Street was originally designed to contain the "Creative Artists Agency (CAA) Screening Room" as an important cultural anchor for the building.
One Madison Park was originally called Saya and is the tallest on the south side of Madison Square Park.
As of late 2009, it was not clear what Slazer intends to do with the the 22nd Street portion of the lot.
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