New York | Bus Terminal + Skyscraper | Rogers Stirk Harbour & Partners

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July 24, 2008, 1:30 pm Turning the Bus Terminal Into a Skyscraper

By David W. Dunlap


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.


Read an updated version of this article prepared for later editions.

Fonte: The New York Times