A report yesterday by Lee "CultureGrrl" Rosenbaum at artsjournal.com on "MoMA Monster Refuses to Shrink" noted that David Pennick, managing partner for Hines Interests in New York, told the Zoning and Franchises Subcommittee of the City Council that last month's insistence by the City Planning Commission that its planned 1,250-foot-high mixed-use tower be reduced by 200 feet might seriously alter its plans.

Mr. Pennick appeared with the project's architect, Jean Nouvel, the project's attorney, Michael Sillerman, and Glenn Lowry, the director of the Museum of Modern Art that received $125 million for the site from Hines and which would gain about 50,000 square feet of expansion space in the planned tower.

They are seeking to have the City Council overrule the planning commission and approve the 1,250-foot-high plan, which involves the transfer of air rights from the University Club and the St. Thomas Episcopal Church, which are both on the same block.

"Near the beginning of his testimony," Ms. Rosenbaum wrote, "Penick said that the shrinkage would force the tower to lose its 150 luxury condominiums, which were planned for the top floors. Later, he said it would keep the condos but lose the 120 hotel units. The Council's Land Use Committee chair, Melinda Katz caught that self-contradiction, whereupon Penick stated that the hotel units would probably be eliminated, not the potentially more lucrative condos."

"During a break in the action," Ms. Rosenbaum continued, "I caught up with Penick and Nouvel outside the meeting room. Penick told me that lopping off 200 feet of height (a loss of 100,000 square feet from the building's proposed 658,000 square feet) would mean a loss of 16 of the planned 85 stories. He conceded that the project, even if it got government approval, would not start any time soon; it would await improved economic conditions."

"At the hearing," she added, "Nouvel unveiled 'a new proposal for the top,' including reflective 'fins' that would be seen from certain vantage points around the tower, but not others. 'There would be strong differences of experiences of the top as you moved around the building....It is a very elegant building.'"

The subcommittee did not vote on the issue.

With its asymmetrical massing and robust angular bracing, the design promised to be a very impressive and very aggressive-looking new tower that would have been the tallest building in Manhattan north of the Empire State Building and therefore a very important and very prominent addition to the city's skyline.

The developer could have built a 1,050-foot-high tower "as-of-right" on the site without seeking special public approvals, but because it wanted a distinctive design and to maximize expansion potential for the Museum of Modern Art it sought a taller plan.

The decision by the City Planning Commission was surprising and not widely embraced.

In an article in The New York Times, Nicholai Ouroussoff wrote that "Amanda Burden, the city planning commissioner, said the tower's top, which culminates in three uneven peaks, did not meet the aesthetic standards of a building that would compete in height with the city's most famous towers." He said that Ms. Burden said that the project "had to show us that they were creating something as great or even greater than the Empire State Building and the design they showed us was unresolved.'"

Citing its "elegant proportions," Mr. Ourossoff wrote that "seen from the street, its receding facades would have induced a delicious sense of vertigo."