When Midtown’s first two supertall 57th Street luxury towers started rising, everybody assumed that One57, with its deep blue Christian Portzamparc design, would be the more attractive structure. Many saw 432 Park, with its relentlessly spare and square look, as a leach on the skyline, sucking in all the views without giving anything back in terms of aesthetics.
432 Park Avenue
But now that One57 is complete and 432 Park Avenue has topped out at 1,397 feet amidst a minor snowstorm of carefully orchestrated PR, the consensus opinion seems to be the opposite: Extell’s One57 turned out to be a dog, and CIM and Macklowe’s 432 Park has become an icon of the skyline, visible far from Manhattan. (Let this, and the unfortunate clipping of the Jean Nouvel-designed tower above MoMA, be a lesson to those clamoring for more government regulation of the design of skyline-piercing towers.)
432 Park Avenue
Despite topping-out, 432 Park hasn’t yet shown its finished face – the windows are still covered by protective wrap, and the mechanical floors that break up the boxes into discrete sets are still covered in netting.
However it ultimately turns out, the building will – along with 20 Fenchurch Street, in London – define Uruguyan architect Rafael Viñoly’s legacy, likely being the tallest and arguably the most prominent building of his career.
432 Park Avenue, photo by ILNY
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