Right next to the famed 40 Mercer Street, which was designed by Jean Nouvel and developed by Andre Balazs, a newer, smaller structure has just shot up and it is all but complete. At 14,000 square feet, the mere sliver of a building that rises seven stories and occupies a single lot, 44 Mercer Street is, together with its neighbor to the south, one of the rare intrusions of modernity among the aging piles of the cast-iron district. This new Soho building between Broome and Grand streets was designed by Caterina Roiatti of TRA Studio. Roiatti’s firm also designed 72 Mercer Street, a slightly more contextual building than the latest arrival. In its neo-modernist probity, the new building is worthy to stand beside Jean Nouvel’s, which is separated from it by a narrow courtyard that belongs to the Nouvel building and that stands over a discretely covered underground parking facility. (See image of 44 Mercer after the jump) [more]