The Huntington Hartford building on 2 circle is one of my favorite pieces of strange architecture in New York. It was designed by Edward Durrell Stone to display Huttington Hartford's personal collection of art. It was given the name "Gallery of Modern Art", but it did not serve as such for long. It is now empty, it just barely escaped from the wrecking balls wished upon it by its its enemies who call it "silly little piece of kitsch--a white marble, pseudo-Venetian doodad lifted above an arcade that Ada Louise Huxtable likened to giant lollipops..." (At least some do.) Now the place will be the new home for the American Craft Museum, which is going to have the place redesigned by Allied Works Architecture, the same people who brought us such places like the Wieden & Kennedy Headquarters.
Well, as I hear the façade of the building will be "opened up", there will be some major changes to the look. Would somebody drill windows into the walls of the Guggenheim if they were told that the product they are starting with is pure kitsch? Hmm.
I agree that 2 Circle is a strange building, but the location of it is just such little piece of greatness, it probably should be preserved. Let's move to drawing number three. Here we have the statue of Christopher , a guy who never gave up the belief that he found a new passage to Asia. So I guess if he were standing on that pillar of his in the midst of the traffic circle named after him, he would definitely not be surprised to look at something that looks like a maharaja palace (the statue faces the building.) He would probably find it deful to be right next to the AOL-Time Warner Center , where an entire giant corporation that had the feeling of having discovered the equivalent of the -time Asia-passage. (A large subscription base...)
Behind him is a large Steel Globe (ahem, now you know why I picked this photograph when designing this portion of IBM.com... you can actually see the Huntington Hartford building in the lower right corner of that picture.)
And behind that globe is this place. Which basically closes this... circle. I think I would keep the building intact and just invite the Polish artist Krzysztof Wodiczko (read Chshyshtov Voditshko) do run some of his brilliant Projections on there. I think I would love that.
Ah, so no Calder museum at the "porthole" building, as has long been rumored? It's one of my favorites as well. At least the chain-link fence will be coming down and the smell of urine may ease. At the rate AOLTW is going down the tubes, its twin tower megacomplex is likely to wind up a half-finished Romantic ruin, the way that so many ambitious buildings have here in São Paulo.
interesting building... it reminds me of dominos... the bottom part of it, the lollipops, looks very dated although it does have a certain charm... i am happy for the building that it will have new life and purpose.
i have grown to appreciate the value of old things... i still shake my head in disbelief when i found out what happened to the original penn station... in fact, i cried for it... and i highly respect those that stand up for the rights of these historic buildings to remain and exist.