The opportunity to imagine a new building facing Central Park, a few blocks from Frank Lloyd Wright’s Guggenheim museum is as rare as it gets. What we offered was to celebrate both a rich urban fabric and the importance of renewal.

Fernand Leger and Le Corbusier emphasized the importance of Form Contrasts as a means to bring about harmonies relevant to the post-classicist, machine age they lived in. Building over an existing Georgian brick townhouse, surrounded by imposing all-brick 5th avenue, Florentine inspired palazzo architecture, poses a similar design strategy challenge.

Opposing large curved glass panes to flat brick surfaces, floor to ceiling openings to 19th century double hung window openings speaks not only about technical evolution, changing life styles but foremost about urban vitality.