Simpatico Homes

At The Standard, Andre Balazs’s High Line-straddling hotel, the show occurs on both sides of the glass

January 16th, 2010

excerpts and illustration from the article Voyeur’s Delight by Karrie Jacobs in Metropolis Magazine

We have become huge fans of the bold architecture of The Standard hotel in NYC for ushering in a new relationship between public and private (and what a walk in the park can do to lift your spirits). The Standard actually straddles New York’s newest park, the High Line– an adaptive reuse of a dilapidated elevated rail line servicing the Meatpacking District. The “transparency” of the hotel’s glass facade, however, has caused tremendous media controversy and it as been dubbed “exhibitionist-friendly.”

“Historically, luxury living in New York has meant a well-cultivated isolation from the hoi polloi, maintained by doormen, altitude, extra window glazing, and a spot in a quiet, genteel neighborhood. What these buildings suggest is a new urban luxury that embraces the city, its smells, noises, and peculiarities. And that inevitably means, either intentionally or by default, a degree of exhibitionism.

I happen to think a little overexposure is a small price to pay for the panorama the hotel affords. The building’s inherent nakedness is its greatest virtue… a highly transparent building in an urban setting is the architectural equivalent of Facebook, a form of social networking. While some guests are, as the Post insists, behaving badly in public, most are just reveling in the uncanny, Edenic pleasure of being at once immersed in Manhattan and butt naked.”

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