Architecture critic pans One57 as “clunky” and “graceless”

From left: 157 West 57th Street and 432 Park Avenue
From left: 157 West 57th Street and 432 Park Avenue

As architecturally offbeat buildings continue to Pop Up Along 57th Street, it was only a matter of time before the critics started lining up to take a few jabs.

New York Magazine’s Justin Davidson kicked off the snark with his thoughts on Macklowe Properties’ and CIM Group’s 432 Park Avenue, referring to the Rafael Vinoly creation as “a genuine clunker.” But it was Extell Development’s One 57, designed by French architect Christian de Portzamparc, that brought out the chief zingers.

“Along 57th Street, lanky residential skyscrapers will soon be lining up for Central Park views like an NBA team craning to peer at a new iPhone,” Davidson mused, calling One57, “tall and clunky, preening yet graceless.”

He also took care to poke fun at the building’s residents, describing the skyline as “filling up with sparsely populated habitats for oligarchs who, if they live there at all, roam across their parquet tundra, hollering for their mates.”

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Even the units themselves couldn’t catch a break.

“It’s hard to imagine how high the ceilings would have to be, how unusably glossy the kitchen, or how noiseless the air conditioning to make an apartment here feel like a good deal,” Davidson wrote. “At these financial altitudes, even an ordinary structural element feels like a ripoff.”

Ouch. [Curbed] & [NYM]Julie Strickland