Although the project was originally proposed before the recession, there has been no official word on whether Jersey City’s 111 First Street will still be built or not. Regardless, the project’s architecture–or rather, starchitecture–is certainly visionary.
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| 111 First Street, Image from Dezeen Magazine |
111 First Street was designed by OMA, the Office of Metropolitan Architecture, which is led by Rem Koolhaas. One of OMA’s most notable projects that has been built is the CCTV Headquarters, in Beijing.
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| Beijing’s CCTV Tower on right, from last summer |
OMA’s work in Jersey City is of a slightly different flavor, and provides a deconstructive take on boxy architecture. Why have one box when you can have three?
The project will rise 52 stories, and will be mixed-use. The tower will have a hotel, residences, retail, as well as space for artists who are displaced by the demolition of the building currently on site, as the building is in the heart of Jersey City’s arts district.
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| 111 First Street, Image from Dezeen Magazine |
111 First Street’s design is certainly groundbreaking, but the real question is whether it’s attractive or not. The stacked boxes almost seem to echo brutalism, and serve to remove the building from any sense of human scale. That being said, attractiveness is subjective, and a building that’s so avant-garde is sure to have some supporters. What do you think?
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The true art that existed on the grounds of 111 First, the once burgeoning art community, was surgically removed and is now to be replaced with this artificial replica of human expression, a monument to a dead culture.