Koolhaas to Build in NYC, Finally

Koolhaas's firm, OMA - Office for Metropolitan Architecture, has an office in New York (headed by Shohei Shigematsu), but the Related project would be the first ground-up building for them in the city. To date he and OMA have executed mainly interiors projects: Prada flagship store in SoHo, a gallery in Chelsea, a store in Nolita, and a kiosk for Coach in Macy's Herald Square store. OMA is also working on an urban water strategy for Hoboken, New Jersey, as one of the winners in HUD's Rebuilding by Design competition, but many of the New York office's projects are found outside the New York area.

The closest Koolhaas came to realizing a building in Manhattan was with 23 East 22nd Street, a 350-foot-high residential tower squashed by the 2008 recession. The design appeared like something out of his landmark 1978 book Delirious New York, in that it stepped like many buildings in the city do in response to zoning codes, but it did so in a completely different manner, leaning around an adjacent building to catch a glimpse of Madison Square Park.

Whatever form the OMA/Koolhaas design takes, it will find itself in the High Line's saturated context of attention-getting architecture. Buildings by Frank Gehry, Jean Nouvel and Shigeru Ban are in the immediate context, and ten blocks north a design by Zaha Hadid, also for The Related Companies, is rising from the ground. Other Related projects in the area are Thomas Juul-Hansen's design for a pair of 10-story buildings linked by an entry under the High Line, and of course the Hudson Yards development now underway adjacent to the third phase of the elevated park.

Source: New York Post