56 Leonard Street – First Skyscraper by Herzog de Meuron Rising in NYC
Today New York developers Izak Senbahar and Simon Elias unveiled the design of 56 Leonard Street, a 57-story condominium tower that is now under construction in Manhattan’s Tribeca Historic District. It will be the first skyscraper realized by Switzerland–based Herzog de Meuron.
Constructed by rotating structural slabs from axis and comprising cantilevers, protruding balconies, and profiled slab corners, 56 Leonard Street will appear something like a Brobdingnagian stack of glass Jenga pieces or a flamboyant nod to architecture’s Metabolism movement. This irregular arrangement of blocks yields a different floor plan for each of the 145 condo units.
Above the double-height lobby—under whose shifting volumes artist Anish Kapoor will slip a giant, kidney-shaped mirrored sculpture—and a private parking garage on the second level, the building divides into several zones. The lowest, contained within four floors that the architects have dubbed “the townhouses,” is articulated to relate to the immediate context and includes amenity spaces such as a 75-foot-long pool and adjoining sundeck, film screening room, and conference and fitness centers. One- to five-bedroom residences populate floors eight through 45, while the top nine stories, seemingly precariously stacked, contain 10 full- and half-floor penthouses ranging in size from 3,650 to 6,380 square feet.
Herzog de Meuron were responsible for the design of the “Bird’s Nest” Olympic Stadium in Bejing.



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