We inaugurate our books feature by taking note of the latest volume in the Rizzoli series chronicling the work of architect Richard Meier. The books are lavish affairs, designed by Massimo Vignelli, with hardcovers bound in full cloth and wrapped in double-fold dust jackets. Volume 4 includes much detail on the three West Village towers designed by Meier--the two on Perry Street and the third now almost finished at 165 Charles Street. The stunning visualizations of 165 Charles in this book were done for the developer by the talented team at dbox. Although the third tower is the largest of the three, to us it appears lighter and more transparent than the first two. While the silhouette and curtain wall are more successful in the third tower, the effect of a third sibling has made the whole affair less unique. As one architect friend of ours remarked, "two was an interesting dialogue, three is a crowd." Still, don't blame these buildings for crowding the Far West Village--after all, there are relatively few units in these structures (some have been converted to duplexes, one even a triplex.) No, the real culprit for the newly busy street-life along West Street is the wildly popular Hudson River Park.
This book documents Meier's work since the previous volume was published in 1999. Among the buildings, private homes, houses of worship, and museums chronicled from around the globe is one other Meier project on the island of Manhattan: Jean-Georges Vongerichten's Restaurant 66.
We may have been in a minority among our dinner companions of late, but we sorta like the new Charles Gwathmey designed apartment house on Astor Place. Maybe part of it is how we remember growing up for a time in the neighborhood during the '80's, when the East Village skaz collided everyday into the gridlocked commerce of lower Broadway via Astor Place, resulting in a sometimes out-of-control mix of street vendors, saxophone players, panhandlers, and boom boxes. Everyone's ambition was to be either Jean-Michel Basquiat, Run DMC, or Gordon Gecko. While that seems like ancient history now, Gwathmey's reflective glass gives us a chance to stop, look in the mirror, and understand just how far we've come.
