Arch@The New York Times Building

The New York Times Building

Nicolai Ouroussoff calls Renzo Piano’s new 52-story home for The New York Times “a towering composition of glass and steel clad in a veil of ceramic rods” that “delivers on Modernism’s age-old promise to drag us — in this case, The Times — out of the Dark Ages.”

Photo: Richard Perry/The New York Times

Mr. Ouroussoff writes, “The last decade has been a time of major upheaval in newspaper journalism, with editors and reporters fretting about how they should adapt to the global digital age. In New York that anxiety has been compounded by the terrorist attacks of 2001, which prompted many corporations to barricade themselves inside gilded fortresses.”

Photo: Richard Perry/The New York Times

“Mr. Piano’s building is rooted in a more comforting time: the era of corporate Modernism that reached its apogee in New York in the 1950s and 60s. If he has gently updated that ethos for the Internet age, the building is still more a paean to the past than to the future.”

Photo: Fred R. Conrad/ The New York Times

“Internal staircases link the various newsroom floors to encourage interaction. The work cubicles are flanked by rows of glass-enclosed offices, many of which are unassigned so that they can be used for private phone conversations or spontaneous meetings. Informal groupings of tables and chairs are also scattered about, creating a variety of social spaces.”

Photo: Fred R. Conrad/ The New York Times

“By the time you reach the 14th-floor cafeteria, the entire city begins to come into focus, with dazzling views to the north, south, east and west. A long, narrow balcony is suspended within the cafeteria’s double-height space, reinforcing the impression that you’re floating in the Midtown skyline.”

Photo: Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

“The building’s most original feature is a scrim of horizontal ceramic rods that diffuses sunlight and lends the exterior a clean, uniform appearance. For The Times, Mr. Piano spent months adjusting the rods’ color and scale.”

Photo: Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

“People entering the building from Eighth Avenue can glance past rows of elevator banks all the way to the fairy tale atrium garden and beyond, to the plush red interior of TheTimesCenter auditorium. From the auditorium, you gaze back through the trees to the majestic lobby space. In effect, the lobby itself is a continuous public performance. The sense of transparency is reinforced by the people streaming through the lobby.”

Photo: Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

“The architect’s goal is to blur the boundary between inside and out, between the life of the newspaper and the life of the street. The lobby is encased entirely in glass, and its transparency plays delightfully against the muscular steel beams and spandrels that support the soaring tower.”

Photo: Fred R. Conrad/ The New York Times

“Pierced by a double-height skylight well on the third and fourth floors, the newsroom has a cool, insular feel even as the facades of the surrounding buildings press in from the north and south. The well functions as a center of gravity, focusing attention on the paper’s nerve center. From many of the desks you also enjoy a view of the delicate branches of the atrium’s birch trees.”

Photo: Fred R. Conrad/ The New York Times

“Depending on your point of view, the Times Building can thus be read as a poignant expression of nostalgia or a reassertion of the paper’s highest values as it faces an uncertain future. Or, more likely, a bit of both.”

Photo: Fred R. Conrad/ The New York Times

@Source: http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2007/11/21/arts/20071121_TIMESBUILDING_SLIDESHOW_10.html

Photo: Fred R. Conrad/ The New York Times