Why Can’t Dallas Have Nice Things: Jean Nouvel

French architect Jean Nouvel began designing buildings in the late 1960s with his first global success being the Arab World Institute building in Paris in 1981. That building captured the geometry inherent in Arabic architecture by using a lattice of multi-sized mechanical lenses on the exterior. The lenses’ job is to manage light entering the building by opening and closing depending on exterior light levels. Pretty ingenious.

Nouvel continues to work in the Arab world, crafting buildings denoting the region’s specific historical context and modern requirements. Nouvel has said buildings have a specific place and time. He would not design the same building for Doha, Qatar, that he would for New York, New York. Each location required connection and context. Looking over Nouvel’s work, it’s easy to see a focus on texture and light. He layers both with dramatic effect. Nouvel won the Pritzker Prize in 2009 and today his firm employs over 140 in Paris with satellites in Rome, Geneva, Madrid, and Barcelona.

But let’s look at New York City first …

53 West 53^rd Street: New York City

Also known as the MoMA Extension, this super tall, 1,050-foot high-rise is currently under construction in New York. It’s part of a trend towards super tall, skinny buildings south of Central Park that rise above existing high-rises to capture park views. They’re skinny because their depth is limited to half the width of a short-block. This presents a challenge for architects as wind speeds increase the taller a building is and thinner buildings are more apt to sway. It’s interesting to note that when Chicago’s Sears Tower was built, its height was enabled by the connecting strength of six cores joined together. Here we are 50 years later and we can easily see the connection of several sections in this building to give its skinny east-west profile strength.

The first four floors will house and addition to the Museum of Modern Art’s campus, hence the nickname.  Above the MoMA will be an unnamed hotel and then condos. The least expansive listed is a 1,619-square-foot, one-bedroom on the 24^th floor for $3.6 million plus $3,036 in monthly assessments. For those wanting to push the boat out, a full floor is available on the 62^nd floor containing 6,954 square feet and four bedrooms for $42.5 million. Amenities include a chauffeur’s lounge, floral delivery and care, technology consultant (no Geek Squad), golf simulator, wellness center, and of course a two-story wine tasting room.

So far, the building is selling the diagonal structural beams as an amenity, but if Chicago’s John Hancock Tower is any indication, units without the scene-stealing steel will fetch more money (at least in resale).

100 Eleventh Avenue: New York City

It’s a tough act to follow, being hired to design a building next door to a Frank Gehry. But on 11^th Avenue (West Side Highway) in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood, that’s just what happened. In contrast to Gehry’s plump glass articulation, Nouvel designed the pixelated façade of 100 11^th Avenue. The 23-story condo building has a modularized façade mixing 32 different window sizes, each angled between two- and five –degrees left, right, up or down. This effect not only gives the building unique reflective qualities, it, along with the curved edge, ensure each unit has views and lots of light.

On the lower floors there’s a façade within a façade offering a 15-foot semi-enclosed interior ‘loggia” punctuated by floating planting boxes where trees seem suspended in the air. The above close-up shows the very non-standard curtain wall structure of the glazing.

One Central Park: Sydney Australia

New York isn’t the only place with a Central Park. Completed in 2013, One Central Park is a pair of condo towers housing 623 units that sit above a six-level shopping center. While its exterior plantings certainly add to its green credentials, the on-site power, HVAC, and water treatment are the main drivers for its five-star rating by the Green Building Council of Australia.

Of course the first thing you notice is the large cantilever between the buildings. The upper part is a sky garden for residents. The lower section, called a heliostat, is where the magic happens. It’s a series of 220 mirrors that automatically move to capture the sun and reflect constant light downwards. This lights up the pool and amenity deck along with the shopping center atrium – places that would otherwise be shrouded in shade for part of the day.

It seems I’m always grumbling about green roofs these days. At One Central Park, it’s the walls that are green. The entire perimeter contains window boxes and wires for vines to climb on. In addition, the skin of the building is punctuated by sections of embedded green space. While certainly a visual treat for passersby, the windows bordering the larger green spaces have unexpected peripheral views of the greenery too. Pretty cool.  But don’t take my word for it, in 2014, the building won an award for the Best Tall Building Worldwide.

Reimagined City: Lima Peru (Unbuilt)

Back in 2011, Lima was developing a new section of the growing city called San Martin and asked for proposals. Above is Nouvel’s answer to constructing a vibrant district as pleasant to live in as it was to look at. The inspiration for the set of residential and office buildings was Lima’s mist-covered mountains. As you can see, the tops of the buildings dissolve into diaphanous rooftop forests, lost in the mist of steel and glass.

From one side, the forest encapsulates the building in nature. From a seeming organic forest growing at the base, to the top of the building, where the exterior forest seeps inwards like a forest growing in a cage.

The lower floors were to have their own connection to mature with vegetation-filled walls and gloriously unexpected waterfalls. Imagine living behind a waterfall?  I remember as a child walking in back of a waterfall in a shopping mall and being amazed at the water racing over my head and falling before my eyes. You’d never leave the house.

Tour 25 – White Walls:  Nicosia Cypress

Awarded Best Tall Building in Europe, Tour 25 is a less-shocking example of the green-piercing, façade-in-façade design seen in the prior Lima example. On the front of the building all appears normal for this 17-story residential building. But at the sides and edges, you can see the pixelated cutouts that a riot of greenery grows behind and out of.

Looking up from the ground, the side of the building explodes with greenery. It almost reminds me of that TV series Life After People that showed how nature retook the planet after we were gone.

But the semi-calm front of the building kept a secret. The back of the building contains individual parks for each unit. No shrimpy balconies with a dead basil plant here. This is full-on wild kingdom. Also, note the open skylights in the roof that let rain water in and continue to allow its percolation to all the plants in the building.

Landmark: Beirut Lebanon (Unbuilt)

A similar playfulness of façade to the 100 Eleventh Street in New York, the Landmark is another stunning example of windows gone wild. The lower floors would have contained offices and a shopping mall while the upper tower is all residential. The heavily articulated exterior is striking for viewers, but …

…the articulation also produces unique floorplans and outdoor spaces. Some flat, some round, others recessed balcony spaces. At night the switching on and off of lights would create a sculpture reminiscent of a slow-moving vertical 1980’s Saturday Night Fever lit dancefloor.

National Museum of Qatar: Doha (Under construction)

Another award-winning project, this museum is a combination of modernity coupled with Arabic architectural tradition. First, it’s obviously geometric with intersecting saucers, but you can also just make out its connection to traditional architecture in the low section right of center where a traditional building is joined with the modern mass.   Imagine seeing something like this along Woodall Rodgers or better yet, slimmed down near a revitalized Fair Park – another setting where old meets new.

Jean Nouvel has been designing buildings for decades and based on this small review of his work, hopefully for decades to come. His use of texture and greenery create buildings you want to live in and live next to (so you can look at them all day).

How about it Dallas? What do you think?

 

Remember:  High-rises, HOAs and renovation are my beat. But I also appreciate modern and historical architecture balanced against the YIMBY movement. In 2016, 2017 and 2018, the National Association of Real Estate Editors recognized my writing with three Bronze (2016, 2017, 2018) and two Silver (2016, 2017) awards.  Have a story to tell or a marriage proposal to make?  Shoot me an email [email protected]. Be sure to look for me on Facebook and Twitter. You won’t find me, but you’re welcome to look.