Turning the Bus Terminal Into a Skyscraper
From left to right: Proposal by the firm Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects of New Haven; Rogers Stirk Harbour & Partners; Manhattan architectural firm
Kohn Pedersen Fox. (Renderings: Port Authority of New York and New Jersey)
By David W. Dunlap
July 24, 2008, 1:30 pm
The on-again, off-again plans to build an office tower over the Port Authority Bus Terminal took at least a conceptual step forward on Thursday afternoon with the unveiling of three possible designs by three leading architectural firms.
Easily the most striking of the three is a constructivist assemblage by the London firm Rogers Stirk Harbour & Partners, which is also designing Tower 3 at the World Trade Center site. It takes the form of four discrete boxes stacked atop one another and bound together by open diagonal trusswork that echoes the bold X-shaped steel braces girdling the main terminal below.
In complete contrast, for its suavity and lucidity, is a proposal by the Manhattan firm Kohn Pedersen Fox Architects. The central element of this plan is a sheer, glass-clad tower whose surface has an almost icy gleam. In this plan, the X braces would recede in importance behind a screen.
Somewhere between these two is the proposal by Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects of New Haven, whose overall form is monolithic but accentuated with a curtain wall on the north and south sides in a kind of monumental basketweave pattern.
The 40-story, 1.3-million-square-foot office tower is to be developed by a joint venture of Vornado Realty Trust and the Lawrence Ruben Company, which is leasing the air rights over the terminal for 99 years.
Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company