# 'Eagle Tower' NYC 41 West 57th Street - A steampunk Neo-Art-Deco architecture revolution of the 21st century?



## Cobblepot (Nov 6, 2015)

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## 3tmk (Nov 23, 2002)

As ugly and out-of-place it would be... I must admit it looks strangely convincing up close.
Perhaps a smaller scale elsewhere in Manhattan could be a good field-test, if a developer wishes to undertake the risk.


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## erbse (Nov 8, 2006)

*Trumpire Style?*

After all I see this similar to a bloated showcar on some exhibition. You know it likely won't look like that if it ever enters a market, but it inspires, impresses and has potential to let more interesting designs enter the mainstream.

I'd be happy to see some of Eagle Tower's elements on a new luxury tower in the area, as we've read there's a lot to come.

I agree the design would profit from one or two actual setbacks, but then again its a really tiny potential construction lot. Anyway, I think this has some inspiring power that clearly will affect future projects. The beginning of new ornamentation is already there and its about time, *architecture literally means "the _art_ of building/construction"*.


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## The Cake On BBQ (May 10, 2010)

They should get rid of those disproportional wings in the middle and then it would be just perfect. :applause:


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## JMGA196 (Jan 1, 2013)

mapece said:


> please don't compare a masterpiece like the Sagrada familia to this kitsch monstruosity.


What architectonical attributes make Sagrada Familia a masterpiece? Other than the great innovation and complexity Gaudi's designs supposed at the time, I just see a big termite mound.


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## moionet (Nov 10, 2013)

erbse said:


> After all I see this similar to a bloated showcar on some exhibition. You know it likely won't look like that if it ever enters a market, but it inspires, impresses and has potential to let more interesting designs enter the mainstream.


Anyway _this event_ will make the designer more famous for a couple of minutes


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## Crowns n' Spires (Apr 5, 2014)

Skopje, is that you?

Well, seriously: It got some nice details, which I'd like to see beeing build on other towers, but alltogehter,
its not verry balanced. Especially the big eagels, pointing out, halfway up, are destroing any flow. There is no
real conneciton between the big ornaments and the plain glass pieces. Altough I see, how this is inspired by
some Art Deco Art pieces, the big difference is, that those are two dimensional, this one got to much of an 3D shape.


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## erbse (Nov 8, 2006)

It's sculpturesque. Similar to a Totem Pole, much 









https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Totem_Pole_-_Pioneer_Square_-_1907.jpg


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## Crowns n' Spires (Apr 5, 2014)

YES!
Indeed.


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## AnOldBlackMarble (Aug 23, 2010)

mapece said:


> please don't compare a masterpiece like the Sagrada familia to this kitsch monstruosity.


That's your opinion. Art is all opinion. I for one hate Sargada but this, I can't say I like, but I don't hate it. It's pure uniqueness makes me want to see it built. :cheers:


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## mapece (May 10, 2013)

The Cake On BBQ said:


> They should get rid of those disproportional wings in the middle and then it would be just perfect. :applause:


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## mapece (May 10, 2013)

JMGA196 said:


> What architectonical attributes make Sagrada Familia a masterpiece? Other than the great innovation and complexity Gaudi's designs supposed at the time, I just see a big termite mound.



I don't know, but I know the fact that from the first time I saw it my mind was blown away because of its beauty. 
Anyway the termite mound is a good comparison, I thought also of the effect you have when you build a sand castle with the wet sand. The organic aspect was something very deliberate I guess, and it's a big part of its appeal to me (it's sad that they are ruining it).


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## Manitopiaaa (Mar 6, 2006)

Truly gorgeous! Build it New York!


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## hordak1975 (May 5, 2012)

I can't say if I like it: but it's definitely interesting... in fact I would love to see some ornamentations on contemporary, glassy architecture that is producing way too many bland buildings.

Who knows; I guess on a not so distant future - thanks to the progress with 3D printing technology - we'll have the opportunity to build such residential towers, and ornate architecture will be ready for a comeback


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## MojoRisin123 (Nov 6, 2013)

It looks like some strange building from a japaneese anime.


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## hellolazyness (Nov 20, 2004)

What's really exciting is the ideas behind it as erbse says. Like those mad fashion show concepts. It's one of the most interesting concepts I've seen as long as I remember, I do hope this can be the start of a truly new 21st century dawn of skyscraper design that harks back to what took millennia of aesthetic practice to refine.


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## AUTOTHRILL (Dec 12, 2009)

the glass ruins it. make it a stone clad tower with the same detailing and we can talk.


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## erbse (Nov 8, 2006)

I agree it would be more fitting on a stone-clad tower. I guess this was supposed to highlight the following though: 

"*Gage says constructing entire surfaces of ornament is entirely possible since by making things robotically you can create forms with an unlimited amount of detail at the same price as doing something flat.*"
http://www.6sqft.com/could-this-oth...overed-in-ornaments-be-coming-to-57th-street/


So by putting ornaments on a regular flat glass tower the effect comes out better.
Just for visualisation purposes.


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## AUTOTHRILL (Dec 12, 2009)

i predicted this a while ago erbse. the advent of 3D printing, now in its nascency, will hit its stride in a decade or so and then its only a matter of time before intricacy and ornament return, and detailed streetscapes are reborn. 

i mean, when faced with choice of a bland boxy building, or a detailed one for cheap, what would any normal person choose? i also think its a matter of the architectural profession often being unwilling to indulge in what they see as pastiche. with 3d printing, design faithful to classical proportions will be much more economically viable, and eventually more prevalent in cities. once it becomes the norm, more and more practises will break out of their modernist shackles and we can start to see an invigorated architectural profession.


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## Union.SLO (Dec 24, 2007)

Very intriguing, I must say. Especially in the picture where juxstapositioned with the 432 Park Avenue. The contrast between the two slender towers could hardly be more striking, each standing on the opposite side of its architectural doctrine, augmented to the very extremes. 

And to my eyes they both fail aesthetically as they are both overdone in their own way. 432 would've been a nice simplistic tower if built half as tall, but with the realised proportions it still hasn't grown on me and probably never will. And the Eagle tower... Well, it's just all balled up and the mishmash of all those heavy ornaments on such a slim tower indeed makes it look like a super-sized totem pole. 

Nonetheless, I find this '_steampunk Neo-Art-Deco_' approach definitelly interesting and hopefully we'll see more ideas and concepts of that kind in the future. The tower as a whole is certainly not to be built, it's visionary with compilation of some cool details that can serve as a basis for further studies.


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## erbse (Nov 8, 2006)

Even Sauron approves on the Eagle Tower's design!









http://i344.photobucket.com/albums/p323/El_hereje/Barad-dur.jpg~original


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## streetscapeer (Apr 30, 2004)

I wish someone could photoshop the U/C 111 W57th street supertall into these renderings, 

I think this building would look slightly less out of place when visualized with the close-by, slim supertall that contains more modern ornamentation (and a similar color palette too).


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## bongo-anders (Oct 26, 2008)

Nexis said:


> Looks abit like a sonic screwdriver...


Yes and with massive Weeping Angels.


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## towerpower123 (Feb 12, 2013)

This is a MESS, but it is so incredible that I think it would look fantastic in New York! On it's own, it might not be as nice but close up, it is of such great detailing that you could spend hours staring at it and still not catch every detail!


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## Tolbert (Jan 5, 2012)

Well.... No!


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## alexandru.mircea (May 18, 2011)

Goodness me! 

Even while disagreeing, I was admiring your intransigent purism for beautiful old architecture, erbse. But seeing that what you actually want for our age is THIS horrendous abomination, I can but stop taking you seriously as an architecture lover. :lol:


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## erbse (Nov 8, 2006)

You're being rather cheeky here, as you should read my other posts in what way I want this for our age. 
I don't have purism for 'old' architecture either, I'm purist for *good* architecture. And there are objective measures to achieve that, depending on context and intent.

No tower actually has to look like this. It gives some ideas what can be done. The most essential thing it says is:

*The ornament is back! It's perfectly affordable, you can be creative and every building can be individual. There's no more excuses for lazy architects.* kay:


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## mapece (May 10, 2013)

but if the ornament is back, is certainly not because of this project. It's true that minimalism, rationalism and international style have been hugely popular, but there are also organic architects and usually their work very often has an incredible amount of details. 
Venturi (I'm not a great fan of him) used to say "less is a bore" and we're not talking of something he said this year on in this decade.
So besides what one could think of this glass sauron tower, why a lot of people are thinking that this should be a revolution or something that could bring back decoration when there are a lot of modern buildings with already a lot of decoration?


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## Union.SLO (Dec 24, 2007)

mapece said:


> So besides what one could think of this glass sauron tower, why a lot of people are thinking that this should be a revolution or something that could bring back decoration when there are a lot of modern buildings with already a lot of decoration?


I think contemporary architecture is indeed capable of producing great works by a dexterous use of patterns, colours, volumes and materials.
Much less when it comes to ornamentation though. There are relatively few examples when contemporary architects succeed to produce a quality work with usage of ornamenation. What they usually do is take a certain pattern and then just copy-paste it all over the surface or they make use of one or two utterly basic geometric forms and then randomly scatter it onto a façade. Many times the result looks as if the input of deep consideration was minimal resp. as an outcome of free associations and current inspiration. Having a showroom full of so originated paintings may be nice, a city full of boxes with jumbled stripes for a façade, err not so much.

From the given perspective the "Eagle Tower" is special, because it tries to coalesce a base of a modern tower with a combination of complex historically and contemporary themed ornamentation. It sure looks ridiculous and gaudy as a whole, but some individual sections contain interesting approaches.


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## mapece (May 10, 2013)

Union.SLO said:


> I think contemporary architecture is indeed capable of producing great works by a dexterous use of patterns, colours, volumes and materials.
> Much less when it comes to ornamentation though. There are relatively few examples when contemporary architects succeed to produce a quality work with usage of ornamenation. What they usually do is take a certain pattern and then just copy-paste it all over the surface or they make use of one or two utterly basic geometric forms and then randomly scatter it onto a façade. Many times the result looks as if the input of deep consideration was minimal resp. as an outcome of free associations and current inspiration. Having a showroom full of so originated paintings may be nice, a city full of boxes with jumbled stripes for a façade, err not so much.


I see what you mean, but in modern architecture you can find also stuff like this:










(Iwan Iwanoff)









(Carlo Scarpa)









Busiri Vici


now, these are not skyscapers and it's a much more modern kind of decoration, but it's not the copy-paste variety of decoration you're thinking of. Sure, there's much more minimalist stuff but I don't think that decoration is really disappeared in the last century.


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## miau (Dec 22, 2008)

still much nicer and less tacky than most highrises they build in Dubai


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## erbse (Nov 8, 2006)

Ah well. These buildings are alright, at least they show some effort.
Let's just compare to actual ornaments and love for the detail.









https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipe...6031300).jpg/1280px-Ranakpur_(2156031300).jpg


The Adinath Temple in Ranakpur, India.


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## Union.SLO (Dec 24, 2007)

mapece said:


> now, these are not skyscapers and it's a much more modern kind of decoration, but it's not the copy-paste variety of decoration you're thinking of. Sure, there's much more minimalist stuff but I don't think that decoration is really disappeared in the last century.


Yeah, the posted buildings are the good examples (I find particularly the nearly sculptural formation of the last one great).
What exactly I had in mind is the somewhat contemporary trend of using simplistic, non-contextual ornaments in order to try to hide the triteness of the underlying façade, to instantly make it look 'more modern'. A supposedly easy way to hide the actual lack of inspiration or even talent.

For instance: Minimalist black box. Okay. But the architect obviously thought it was too plain, too 70s. He obviously also didn't want to spend too much time thinking how to improve it, so he just randomly wraped it with some pipes and voila, that should do it!










Some more examples to illustrate what's bugging me :lol:

http://www.nimbus.cz/pics/6-vbb/vlada-5.jpg
http://urbantoronto.ca/picoftheday/images/TheatreParkTower.jpg
https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3899/14511514218_7cb9f05e66_b.jpg
http://arhi.si/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/KUC-Miren-2009-1.jpg


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## mapece (May 10, 2013)

erbse said:


> Ah well. These buildings are alright, at least they show some effort.
> Let's just compare to actual ornaments and love for the detail.
> 
> 
> ...


I love this, but I didn't mean to make a competition (and I don't think that every building should be a demonstration of horror vacui, but that's me)


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## Nexis (Aug 7, 2007)

This is what happens when an architect takes LSD.....


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## singoone (Jun 20, 2011)

Marvellous. :drool:


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## hellolazyness (Nov 20, 2004)

Reminds me of LOTResque architecture too


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## benpicko (Jul 28, 2015)

I like the idea and hopefully the technology leads to something that's actually appealing to look at, but, especially in their other proposals, it's basically just a bunch of models smashed together to hide a pretty basic building otherwise.


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## Chimer (Apr 20, 2006)

Like it or hate, but modernist architecture age is officially ended here. At last.


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## _Barca_ (Apr 15, 2009)

Great design but unfortunately won't be built. Everyone would travel to NY to see this building but no one will ever go to see 432 park avenue. Yet critics say we should hate the exciting one and love the bland one. This building woul'd ve been liked by most of all history famous architects but no, we are not allowed to like that architecture anymore, we have to love the glass towers with no detail.


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