Here are some of the new notable office towers on New York’s skyline. These commercial skyscrapers introduce new ideas of workspace design, find (successfully or not successfully) new architectural solutions, and reshape the city’s skyline.
Table of Contents
One Vanderbilt
- Architect: Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates (KPF)
- Year: 2020
- Location: 317 Madison Ave
- Height: 1,401 feet, 59 floors
One Vanderbilt is a “supertall” skyscraper, one of New York’s tallest buildings and the tallest office tower in Midtown.
Flanking the Grand Central, it’s the 21st-century addition to the Terminal City – an early 20th-century commercial and office development in Midtown Manhattan set around the Grand Central Terminal. The office buildings and hotels that comprise Terminal City are all connected to the Grand Central Terminal through the underground passageways. By the same token, One Vanderbilt is integrated into the complex underground and offers connections to the terminal and the pedestrian plaza on Vanderbilt Avenue.
The most significant architectural challenge for a modern tower located next to the Grand Central is to avoid fighting the historical presidents. One Vanderbilt is designed to complement the nearby Chrysler Building, framing the Grand Central on its other side. By design, a series of angled cuts at the base of One Vanderbilt allow a view to the corner of the Grand Central magnificent cornice.
The top stories of One Vanderbilt contain the Summit One Vanderbilt observation deck.
The Spiral
- Architect: Bjarke Ingels Group
- Year: 2023
- Location: 66 Hudson Boulevard
- Height: 1,031-foot (314 m), 66-floors
Like residential The Jardim, The Spiral focuses on the idea of a seamless indoor-outdoor space. The Spiral is an office tower with a distinct design feature: outdoor gardens that spiral around the facade of the building in a continuous green pathway. Thus, the tower’s name. The cascading terraces reach every tower floor, connecting indoor atrium workspaces to exterior landscaped terraces. It’s ideal for informal meetings or taking a break from the office at any moment of your workday.
The Spiral was named the world’s Best Tall Building of 2023 in the 300–399 Meters category by The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat.
Photo: https://www.skyscrapercenter.com/building/the-spiral/23571
30 Hudson Yards
- Architect: Kohn Pedersen Fox
- Year: 2019
- Location: 500 West 33rd Street
- Height:1,270 ft (387 m), 73 floors
The largest private real estate development in U.S. history with the price tag of $25 billion, Hudson Yards changed the character of the West Side from industrial to fancy.
The tallest tower in the development, 30 Hudson Yards, is home to the highest outdoor observation deck in the Western Hemisphere, The Edge. The observation deck on the building’s 75th floor juts out more than 1,000 feet (305 m) above the city.
30 Hudson Yards houses the headquarters for media and entertainment company Warner Media, as well as its subsidiaries, HBO, CNN, and Warner Brothers.
Designed as a pair, 30 Hudson Yards and 10 Hudson Yards face in opposing directions, one -towards the city, another to the Hudson River – as if talking to each other or dancing with one another.
50 Hudson Yards
- Architect: Foster + Partners
- Year: 2022
- Location: 50 Hudson Yards (10th Ave between 33rd and 34th Streets)
- Height:981 feet (299 m), 58 stories
No one can accuse the Foster + Partners in false modesty as they describe their work in the following terms: “The tower is a masterpiece of modern architecture, engineering and design that stays true to the classic, understated NYC aesthetic, while delivering a visionary new approach to the way we work, now and in the future.”
The building replaced a drive-through McDonald’s that had long occupied the southwest corner of 34th Street and 10th Avenue.
The building lobby features art installations by the modern American master Frank Stella: two unnamed starburst-shaped sculptures made of painted steel, aluminum and fiberglass. Surrounding Stella’s iconic interlocking star sculptures, an elliptical staircase designed by Norman Foster.
One of the major tenants of the building is Facebook’s META.
425 Park Avenue, New York City Office Building
- Architect: Foster + Partners
- Year: 2022
- Location: 425 Park Avenue
- Height: 893 feet
425 Park Avenue is the first full-block office building on New York’s Park Avenue in over 50 years located alongside Modernist icons such as the Seagram Building and Lever House.
Out of eleven architecture firms that submitted the bids, four submissions were chosen for the final selection: Foster + Partners, Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, Office for Metropolitan Architecture, and the firm of the late and great Zaha Hadid. All four incorporated the base of the original building, topped with a skyscraper that speaks to the designer’s signature style.
Foster + Partners, with the design emphasizing its green features, environmentally-friendly materials, and high-energy performance, got the job. Three concrete fins on the top have an Art Deco flair and the curtain wall pays homage to its International Style predecessors.
JPMorgan Chase HQ
- Architect: Foster + Partners
- Year: expected to be completed by the end of 2025
- Location: 270 Park Avenue
- Height: 1,388 feet (423 m), 70 floors
The new global headquarters for JPMorgan Chase claims to be New York City’s largest all-electric tower with net zero operational emissions.
What will distinguish it from all the other skyscrapers in midtown?
Norman Foster’s skyscraper signature is the use of exposed structure as embellishment. Rather than being concealing its steel frame, it’s used as a part of the glass façade. The tower rises with symmetrical setbacks and stands en pointe where it meets the street, opening up space for a public plaza.
What’s the reaction from the critics?
Alexandra Lange, the architecture critic for Curbed, described it as “a son of Hearst Tower grafted on creepy legs.” Christopher Bonanos of Curbed said that the building’s base supports “all that heft balance, quixotically, on ballerinas’ toes.” Reese Lewis of the Brooklyn Rail characterized its construction as “the fundamental condition of total contradiction”, saying that the building’s development had been motivated purely by economic factors and that the previous building had been torn down without good reason.
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