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Re: 111 First Street - the teardown
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I really don't know how to respond to this. The 111 First buiding was a friggin ruin, was architecturally quite uninteresting, and economically unviable. You are defending a no-name pile of bricks that is (was) 111 First from demolition and are against a Rem Koolhaas (not Koolhaus as you say) new construction in its place. Blows my mind, but somehow I am not surprised. Quote: Koolhaus may or may not design something wonderful. It's just inappropriate right in the middle of what was supposed to be a historic district<< I disagree. Totally. Old and new need to mix.

Posted on: 2007/2/14 15:59
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Re: 111 First Street - the teardown
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JPhurst wrote:
Quote:


...Of course, it was the owner's own active neglect that led to such deterioration. That is akin to murdering your parents and then throwing oneself upon the mercy of the court as an orphan....



...Teardowns to build more monotonous housing is not....

Joshua Parkhurst
President
Jersey City Landmarks Conservancy


1. Really? How long has Goldman owned 111 First? 10, 15 years? Is it possible to completely ruin a fairly sturdy brick building in that timeframe? I doubt it. The building (or, rather, a hodge-podge of inter-connected old buildings, as the current teardown reveals) was probably never properly maintained, or at least hasn't been for a long-long time, far longer than Goldman's ownership.

2. You are probably the first person in the world to accuse Koolhaas of building "monotonous housing" and cite his designs as an example of lack of evolution for a city. WOW. That from an "architecture expert".

Posted on: 2007/2/14 14:38
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Re: 111 First Street - the teardown
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Quote:

joesas wrote:
preliminary sketches were released a while back. you can check some of them out on jcvibe.com

just mixing the brick base with a tower will be challenging.

the tower itself might be an architectural feat as the base, but together not so cute methinks. hopefully i will be proven wrong.


Like I.M. Pei and the Louvre?

Some like it, some hate it.

Challenging indeed....

Posted on: 2007/2/13 17:56
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Re: 111 First Street - the teardown
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Quote:

joesas wrote:
...hideous glass tower looming over the base.... no plans yet though they should be released soon.


A remarkable post.

How do you know the tower will be hideous if its plans have not been released yet?

Been talking to Koolhaas lately?

Posted on: 2007/2/13 17:41
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Re: Chromium cleanup standards stiffened -- DEP calls the new rules the toughest in nation
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Quote:

NNJR wrote:
You think it is related to NJ's autism rate being the highest recoded in the US?


I'm pretty slow and I been in jc since 1981.

PS - Recoded is not good.

Posted on: 2007/2/11 22:02
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Re: Tonnele Avenue: Prostitution a problem in Jersey City - 'Ladies of the night' still a presence
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Quote:

...Dressed in a gray, hooded jacket, the young white woman, who looked somewhere between late teens to early twenties...

Ricardo Kaulessar can be reached at rkaulessar@hudsonreporter.com


WTF?

This racist statement has no place in print, or anywhere else.

Posted on: 2007/2/10 15:19
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Beacon Penthouse goes for $2.3 mil; boom continues in JC, Hoboken
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By ANTOINETTE MARTIN, The NYTimes

Published: February 11, 2007

THERE is a wealth of high-end, high-rise condominium units coming on the market along the Jersey ?Gold Coast? ? and purchase prices are soaring to new heights.

Last week, a two-story penthouse at the Beacon, the former Jersey City Medical Center complex that is being converted to condominiums, set a record for a high-rise apartment in Jersey City when a purchase contract was signed for $2.3 million.

?This is indeed a leap,? said Jacqueline Urgo, executive vice president of the Marketing Directors, which is handling sales. She said that her agency had overseen sales at Liberty Terrace, the last high-rise to break price barriers in Jersey City, and that the highest purchase price there had been $1.45 million.

Most Liberty Terrace units were sold by September, though, said Ms. Urgo ? and she sees the market for expensive condos with riverfront views as having picked up significantly since then.

At the 55-story Trump Plaza, now under construction in Jersey City, more than 200 contracts for condos have been signed since sales started in October. Asking prices for apartments there range from $400,000 to around $2.5 million for the penthouse, which has not yet been sold.

The Beacon, a $350 million conversion of eight Art Deco structures set on a hill in Jersey City?s downtown, has until now been marketed as a lower-cost alternative to waterfront high-rises. Studio units on low floors of the first two Beacon buildings, which are to open this spring, sold for $325,000.

A total of 265 units, out of 315 studio, one-, two- and three-bedroom condos in the first two buildings, have sold, according to the developer, Metrovest Equities, based in Manhattan. Ultimately, Metrovest plans to create 1,200 condos and rental units at the Beacon complex.

The penthouse that sold is now taking shape on the 20th and 21st floors of the Beacon?s Capitol building. It will offer three bedrooms, three full and two half baths, a library, a den, a breakfast room and a private interior elevator, with a total of 3,195 square feet of interior space. In addition, the penthouse has three terraces covering 2,100 square feet, facing north, southeast and west, with views of the full Manhattan skyline and the Statue of Liberty.

?This is some apartment,? said George Filopoulos, Metrovest?s president. ?We?ve tried to take advantage of all the unique architectural features these buildings offer, and the quirks in this one make for a magnificent home.?

More than 100 different designs have been developed for units at the Capitol and the Rialto, the other Beacon building now under construction. The Rialto penthouse unit is being marketed, as are the two condos below the penthouse at the Capitol.

Just to the north, in Hoboken, where prices have generally tracked higher than in Jersey City, a record is certain to be set whenever contracts are signed for two penthouse condos atop the W Hotel, now being built beside the Hudson River.

The asking price for those units ? which come with full W Hotel service ? is $4.4 million, according to the developer, Michael Barry of the Hoboken-based Applied Development Company. He said that there had been a number of ?serious lookers? and that he expected both to sell well before completion of the hotel building in the summer of 2008.

Prices for the W condos are roughly $1,000 per square foot ? around $300 per square foot more than the typical new-construction high-rise unit gets in Hoboken ? according to the Marketing Directors, which is handling W?s sales as well.

But, Ms. Urgo noted, the W will provide exceptional service and ambience for Hoboken, with a sleek design by the Manhattan architecture firm of Gwathmey Siegel & Associates, as well as concierge service, a restaurant and shopping area, the W Bliss spa, an upstairs bar and a stunning lobby with a street-level bar.

There will be nine floors of condos with two, three or four bedrooms atop the hotel ? a total of 38 units ? with asking prices starting at $1.5 million. Mr. Barry said 32 were already under contract.

The four-bedroom penthouses each provide 4,250 square feet of space, with unobstructed wraparound views of New York City from their 25th floor perch. Each has floor-to-ceiling windows, a den and a fitness room, the developer said.

Three three-bedroom units on the floor below have been sold for $2.6 million, which may be a record for high-rise units in Hoboken, according to the Marketing Directors.

Another candidate to challenge Hoboken?s record might be Maxwell Place, where the first of two riverfront buildings recently opened to its first occupants, but where closing prices have not yet been reported. A second building is being marketed, although construction has not started. Several large two-bedroom units on upper floors of the second building have asking prices in the $2 million range.

The W and Maxwell Place have been attracting buyers from Manhattan and New Jersey in roughly equal numbers, according to Applied and the Pinnacle Companies, the builder of Maxwell Place.

Another huge development in Jersey City, the Liberty Harbor project, which covers 28 city blocks, will have 667 units coming on the market this year and next, with an eventual 7,000 to 10,000 units planned at a site adjacent to the Paulus Hook neighborhood. Right now, the project has some four- and five-bedroom town homes on the market, at prices of $1.5 million to $1.66 million.

At Port Liberte in Jersey City, several lavish town homes at the water?s edge are up for resale at prices in excess of $2 million, including one for $2.99 million. And in Hoboken, two grand three-story brownstones are listed at $2.75 million and $3 million.

?The high-rise market is different, though,? Mr. Filopoulos noted. ?We?re really excited about setting a record with the Beacon that signifies a real change in the high-rise picture in Jersey City.?

As with the W, he said, the amenities are crucial to the value of the condos.

The Rialto and Capitol buildings are joined by a two-story lobby with a 24-hour doorman and concierge. Residents will also be provided valet parking, shuttle service to PATH trains and ferry stations, and access to a 25,000-square-foot ?lifestyle and fitness? center with a full-time staff. Club Aqua, as the center is called, is to feature an indoor pool, gym, lounge with hot tubs, his and hers saunas and steam rooms, a ?social sauna,? treatment rooms, a yoga studio, a juice bar, a screening room and a children?s playroom.

Beacon residents will also have access to a restored Art Deco theater that will be available for events, a catering kitchen and a rooftop sundeck for grilling, dining and lounging, Mr. Filopoulos said. ?Additional spaces are being brought back to mint condition to be used as poker rooms, a reading gallery and a billiards hall,? he added.

A ?town center? now under construction will have a rooftop bar-restaurant, shops, a market, a prekindergarten and day-care facility, a movie theater and an art gallery.

Posted on: 2007/2/10 14:03
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Re: We Will Remember! Pay to play voted down
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Quote:

parkman wrote:
Quote:

NONdowntown wrote:
Quote:

parkman wrote:
some times a cigar is just a cigar.


and sometimes a politician is just a politician.
And sometimes, a cynic is just a cynic.


And sometimes, a political shill-job of an Internet forum is just that - a political shill job.

This Fulop love-fest's gotta end.

Posted on: 2007/1/25 16:24
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Re: Fulop: Vega and Lipski rake in developer $$$
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Quote:

bdlaw wrote:

injc, while you make a nice point about the "ideological rant", you do conveniently ignore PHResident's "gaming of the marketplace" argument.

So how about addressing that?


I'll address it thusly:

1. JC is competing mostly with NYC, and in that sense is handicapped (the Jersey syndrome). Hence, incentives are necessary.

2. In case of big corporate clients (the Merrill Lynches of the world), NYC is also offering huge incentives. So the market IS deciding. I think those who think that others in the market don't offer incentives are deluded.

I have no idea how PHResident knows that if JC stopped PILOTs on the waterfront the development would continue unabated (pun intended).

I think it's too high a risk to take (Brooklyn and Queens are just waiting for this).

Posted on: 2007/1/24 21:35
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Re: Fulop: Vega and Lipski rake in developer $$$
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Quote:
PHResident wrote: Quote:
injcsince81 wrote: Quote:
EthanCrane wrote: Quote:
injcsince81 wrote: I am very concerned that he'll bring the development that JC has experienced so far to a grinding halt. He'll need to convince me that he's not anti-development if he wants my vote.
I'm just not sure what you're referring to.
His tax abatement voting records. You need to give business to gain business. Simple as that. Always has been, always will be. His tax abatement voting record does not impress me.
I believe Steve has voted for some abatements. The two that come to my mind are The Beacon and The American Can Company project. I believe that both of these projects received 30 year deals (with The Beacon receiving multiple PILOTs). The difference between those Steve supported and those he voted against is wholly based on whether the area of the city where a particular project is being build needs incentives to attract developers or not. The "Gold Coast", as it is referred to by many throughout the area, no longer qualifies as an area in need of incentives. Giving handouts (in the form of PILOTs) to developers to build in areas where they would likely build anyway is simply corporate welfare at best and a system of quid quo pro in the worst case scenario. And as much as the "pro-business" class loves to rail against social welfare, I would think that they would also rail against corporate welfare (at least in theory). Aren't the market forces supposed to hash all of this out? Isn't giving incentives to business in areas where no incentives are needed in a way not letting the market dictate things? Social conservatives love to point out that the "welfare state" keeps individuals from taking responsibility for their own lives and keeps them stuck in patterns where they are always expecting a hand out. But can't the same thing be said for continually handing out money to businesses? Aren't we in a sense saying we believe in the free market system all the while we are artificially propping it up? The suggestion that ending the practice of giving PILOTs to properties along the waterfront is going to halt future development is laughable. These large developers aren't building to do Jersey City any favors. They come, and continue to come, because they see a lucrative market for their product. Most of them chose JC and make plans and then ask for the PILOTs later. They simply ask because they know that our city government just can?t say no (not only to PILOTs, but to a whole host of other things). We've reached critical mass on development on or near the waterfront. We have to stop acting as if these people will simply pick up their toys and leave if we stand up for ourselves. We've gone from encouraging development in this city to simply being doormats. And when and if we wish to stop being doormats, it's going to be up to us to put a stop to it, because those who are walking all over us aren't going to change on their own.
Nice ideological rant. I don't agree with a single word you just said. The developers bring the City brand new ratables thanks to their "PILOT handouts". They bring jobs, too, both pre-construction, construction and post-construction. Welfare handouts perpetuate the cycle of poverty and bring nothing. >>These large developers aren't building to do Jersey City any favors. They come, and continue to come, because they see a lucrative market for their product. << It's called business. >>And when and if we wish to stop being doormats, it's going to be up to us to put a stop to it... snip<< Ahhh, a valiant call to arms... Count me out. I like the fact that Healy is pro-development, warts and all.

Posted on: 2007/1/24 21:15
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Re: Fulop: Vega and Lipski rake in developer $$$
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Quote:

EthanCrane wrote:
Quote:

injcsince81 wrote:

I am very concerned that he'll bring the development that JC has experienced so far to a grinding halt.

He'll need to convince me that he's not anti-development if he wants my vote.


I'm just not sure what you're referring to.


His tax abatement voting records.

You need to give business to gain business.

Simple as that. Always has been, always will be.

His tax abatement voting record does not impress me.

Posted on: 2007/1/24 16:28
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Re: Fulop: Vega and Lipski rake in developer $$$
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Quote:

EthanCrane wrote:


I'm really longing for the day when I can say "Mayor Fulop."


I am not.

I am very concerned that he'll bring the development that JC has experienced so far to a grinding halt.

He'll need to convince me that he's not anti-development if he wants my vote.

So far I have not been impressed.

Posted on: 2007/1/24 16:10
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Re: Jersey City's Parks and Open Space Master Plan
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Quote:

Lindad wrote:
Yes - they believe if you pave it, they will come. I say our signed should be updated to "Welcome to Ugly City", "Height's Blight" - well, you get the idea.

I remember April 2005, the first year Reservoir 3 was open every Saturday. There was a big festival. Healy, who lives in the area, was supposed to show. He didn't, but when Janaan Tea Shop opened on Grove and Third a few weeks later, there he was. Very interesting......

I think these folks think they are emulating our neighbor to the east. While the mile-square city has a lot of development; Hoboken has a surprising amount of open, passive space, too and LOT OF TREE-LINED STREETS.

As a matter of fact, some bright and shining Pershing Fields' employee told me last summer if I liked open, passive space so much, I should go to Hoboken's River Park.

I asked why I should take the #87 or bike to Hoboken when I live four and half blocks away from Reservoir 3?

I am going to go to City Hall tonight and Hancock Avenue on Thursday, because we got to stick together to overcome Smoking Joe's Baseball mafia (loved that one) and the pols who support them with our taxes.

I don't have anything against kids and resent the way some factions paint people who are anti-ball fields as anty-child. Not all kids are into sports. Where are they - and we - going to go?


While I am all for preserving the Reservoir, I'd like to point out that the 1,200 acre Liberty State Park provides lots of open space in Jersey City (13% of the total JC land area).

The Reservoir is unique. It should be preserved.

Put the ballfields in LSP (I think there is already a plan to that effect).

Posted on: 2007/1/23 21:46
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Re: Steven Fulop in Wikipedia
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The Wikipedia sounds like a pathetic political shill-job, with poor spelling at that.

Posted on: 2006/12/11 18:49
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Re: 2,600 homes, cafeteria & movie theaters... Jersey City's Bel Fuse opens huge Chinese factory
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Bel Fuse knows on which side their bread is buttered.

I recently read that in China a freshly minted engineer employed by Chinese automakers Geely or Chery earns about $7k/year, and is quite happy. Cars are still crappy, but they will get better.

In the meantime, Wall Street average salary (in the financial sector) is $8,300/week, and it's going up.

Not sure what that means for JC, other than shorting the hell out of Detroit stocks might be a good idea...

Posted on: 2006/11/23 15:21
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Re: Rivalries between the city and county -- "This stuff has been going on 100 years," Healy said
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Let's see: Matsikoudis, Gaughan, O'Reilly, Czaplicki.

A Greek, two Micks, and a Polack meet at a bar...

Who cares?

Posted on: 2006/11/22 1:17
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Re: Steven Fulop - Newark Avenue Update
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Quote:

brewster wrote:
Quote:

GrovePath wrote:
( And by the, I would not mind seeing a new name - I would like Holland Avenue, Journal Avenue or Liberty Avenue -- where the names come from should be obvious. )


Since everything in JC and NJ is for sale, like the tpk, why not sell naming rights to the streets? How about Trump Ave?


There ya go!

How about Citi Street?

$20 million/year for 20 years and then we sell it again!

You listenin', Healy????


Posted on: 2006/11/20 20:47
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Re: Steven Fulop - Newark Avenue Update
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Quote:

bryhove wrote:
Quote:

alb wrote:
One simple, local solution would be to pay the guy who owns the department store by C.H. Martin to turn his store over to someone else. That's a store that seems to be suitable for the market and could be really useful, but the owner just glares at people like me and scares us away.
If, say, the Subia's people would take it over and give it a cool, friendly vibe, maybe it could be an engine of change all by itself.



If Newark Ave really wants to turn around - it's ....


...gotta lose its name.

NEWARK Ave?

At least it's not CAMDEN Ave.

But a new name would be a start.

Posted on: 2006/11/20 20:07
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Re: Liberty Harbor North
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Quote:

JCmania wrote:
I wouldn't be concerned with brownfield status originating from spill from underground gas storage tank but chromium???

http://www.state.nj.us/dep/dsr/chromi ... rveillance-appendices.pdf

Basically, the whole section of Grand St that is being built is included in that report, including the Sales Office and Medical Center.


I heard they will be including free nose swabs and urine testing at contract signing to get a baseline.

Posted on: 2006/11/15 23:37
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Re: "A" Condiminium Pricing
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Quote:

lothar wrote:
Wow. So if you put 20% down on the 2 bedroom and you get a mortgage of 6%, your monthly payment is around $2,750 a month, then add on taxes which will be around $8,500 (about 1.5% of the purchase price) and say a measly $200 a month in common fees, your cost is $3,666 a month. Is there any way in the world anyone could rent that out to cover that price (let alone make a return on that $115,000 down payment)?
The price is out of whack, but then so has the JC market for a few years.


Property taxes and mortgage interest are tax-deductible.

Have you considered it in your calculation?

Posted on: 2006/11/7 15:01
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Re: Powerhouse vision has gotten blurry
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Quote:

AlanSommerman wrote:
http://travel2.nytimes.com/2006/11/01/arts/design/01tate.html

Here's an interesting article about the Tate Modern - a London Museum built in a former powerhouse. It sounds wonderful and makes me realize what a great thing could happen in JC. You have to wonder if the big museum powerbrokers in NYC even know that our powerhouse exists. The recent announcement that the Whitney may move its expansion to the Highline should get others thinking about "off-campus" expansion.

At the risk of being smug, the article also underscores my personal opinion that the new MoMA blows architecturally.


Funny you say that, Alan, because about 1 year ago I sent a letter to the Guggenheim Foundation proposing exactly that.

I enclosed color pics of the Powerhouse.

I was inspired by Musee d"Orsay in Paris, which is housed in a former train station.

No reply, though.

Perhaps Josh Parkhurst could write to Whitney or MoMA?

Posted on: 2006/11/1 17:45
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Re: Whole Foods sought for Downtown
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Quote:

icricket wrote:

...plenty of nasty posters here all the time...


Oh yeah - icricket, you are forgetting that most of the nasties on this board are anti-real estate development penniless loser renters who are worried that they will be priced out of DT and will have to move to Greenville or Newark.

That's the ONLY motivation for their negative posts.

Perhaps if they spent less time at jclist and more time figuring out how to make money they would be happier.

Posted on: 2006/10/19 12:55
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Re: $9M TAG: 300 block of first street
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btw - it's still on the market and down to ONLY $6.5 mil.

REDUCED!!!

MOTIVATED OWNER!!!

Posted on: 2006/10/2 21:24
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Re: THE GREAT DIVIDE: Healy can talk about the 'rising tide,' climbing poverty rate tells another story
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Soshin just got bored with the Union Of European Socialist Republics, so he came to the US to try to sow Socialism here.

Jclist is his pulpit.

Loser.

Posted on: 2006/9/27 16:53
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Re: THE GREAT DIVIDE: Healy can talk about the 'rising tide,' climbing poverty rate tells another st
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Quote:

soshin wrote:
Quote:

injcsince81 wrote:
[quote]
soshin wrote:
As for construction jobs, why should a construction company hire unskilled Americans at minimum wage when they can have skilled Mexicans at below minimum wage?

Ever try living on minimum wage? It's harder than staying on benefits.


1. Of course they shouldn't. They should hire the Mexicans because they are smarter, harder working, more motivated, and cheaper. You just proved my point. Until the "poor Americans" get off their asses, they'll have their lunch eaten by the Mexicans, Indians, Chinese (insert your Developing Nation here). Exactly how it should be.

2. Yes.

And I went hungry sometimes, but I went to school. So now I can compete with (insert your Developing Nation here). At least I hope so.


For "Cheaper" read "Exploitation". Would you get off your ass for below minimum wage? The minumum wage in NJ $6.15 an hour, so lets say the construction company decides they can generously afford $5 an hour, you work an 8 hour day lifting heavy stuff and go home with the princely sum of $40!!! Woohoo! I think I'd rather be standing on the street corner collecting benefits. [quote]

They are collecting drug money, in case you haven't noticed.

Posted on: 2006/9/27 1:35
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Re: THE GREAT DIVIDE: Healy can talk about the 'rising tide,' climbing poverty rate tells another st
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Quote:

soshin wrote:
As for construction jobs, why should a construction company hire unskilled Americans at minimum wage when they can have skilled Mexicans at below minimum wage?

Ever try living on minimum wage? It's harder than staying on benefits.


1. Of course they shouldn't. They should hire the Mexicans because they are smarter, harder working, more motivated, and cheaper. You just proved my point. Until the "poor Americans" get off their asses, they'll have their lunch eaten by the Mexicans, Indians, Chinese (insert your Developing Nation here). Exactly how it should be.

2. Yes.

And I went hungry sometimes, but I went to school. So now I can compete with (insert your Developing Nation here). At least I hope so.

Posted on: 2006/9/27 0:23
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Re: THE GREAT DIVIDE: Healy can talk about the 'rising tide,' climbing poverty rate tells another story
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The "poor people" need to get off their asses and start looking for work.

There is plenty of jobs. The unemployment is low.

For the past 12 years, construction jobs have been so plentiful it is not even funny. Other jobs are out there, too.

What were these "poor people"doing to get from under the poverty line?

Hanging on the corners? That won't do it.

You liberals are really funny.

Posted on: 2006/9/26 23:33
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Re: Zoning Board to Consider Building Housing on the Embankment
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Quote:

AssHat wrote:


>> Liberty State Park, Jersey City. Cruisy toilet near the ferry. Take Exit 14B on the New Jersey Turnpike. Follow the signs to Liberty State Park.


>> Newport Mall, Jersey City. Cruisy toilet on the first floor of J C Penney.

"Good action in this toilet."



Sound like McGreevey should hang out here.

Posted on: 2006/9/21 19:19
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Re: Rem Koolhaas to design 111 First
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Quote:

Bobblehead wrote:

Same as it ever was, though, as you pointed out: Greenwich, LES, Williamsburg, etc., etc.


It has been extensively documented that, as you pointed out, artists (and, btw, gays, too), have been for decades revitalizing decrepit neighborhoods while being priced out of those they had already revitalized.

So, nothing new.

Except that recently, in Hudson, NY, they actually BOUGHT properties and are now sitting very pretty, having set up galleries, shops, workshops, etc, in their own buildings.

Many urban areas owe these groups a debt of gratitude, no doubt.

But RE is a tough biz, and artists tend not to think about the business side a lot.

But they should, because their knack for finding the "next great place" is uncommon.

Posted on: 2006/9/19 21:25
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Re: Rem Koolhaas to design 111 First
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Rem Koolhaas, 2000

WITH JENNIFER SIGLER
PHOTOGRAPHED BY WOLFGANG TILLMANS

It's no simple matter to schedule an interview with Rem Koolhaas. He might be in Los Angeles planning the new Universal Studios Headquarters; in China, Rome, or Lagos, Nigeria, conducting research with his students from the Harvard Graduate School of Design; in Basel, fine-tuning Ian Schrager's upcoming New York hotel with Herzog & de Meuron; in Seattle collaborating with Microsoft on the new public library; in New York, San Francisco, or Milan meeting with Prada; in Las Vegas with the Guggenheim; or, more likely than not, on an airplane.
So we went to Jennifer Sigler ? currently the editor of the upstart Dutch architectural journal, Hunch, and previously the editor of Koolhaas' seminal 1,344 page monograph, S, M, L, XL ? and we asked her to track down Rem in Rotterdam, where his office, OMA ? and its new counterpart, AMO ? is based. Jen caught up with Koolhaas at his tiny 11th floor flat overlooking the Maas River. Typical of Rem, the conversation ranged from American fitness, to Nigerian traffic patterns, to the traditional irritants of shopping.


JEN: Let's talk about something besides architecture.
REM: Do you know that in the past week I've been swimming in Lagos, in Milan, in Switzerland, in Rotterdam, in London, in L.A., and in Las Vegas?
JEN: Incredible. In one week?
REM: Yes. That means seven cultures, seven typologies of bodies, seven typologies of movement, seven typologies of exhibitions, of introversion, of hygiene, seven typologies of smell. Taste is almost as important. The water feels like a very thin soup, like gruel, and with some training you can taste who has been swimming there. In Holland they rotate swimmers in a very ideological, politically-correct way ? old people, retarded people, Turkish people. I have a sense that I can tell the whole pre-history of the water.
JEN: Why do you swim?
REM: It's about the relationship between your ideas and your body. It both evacuates and charges. You can influence your mind by being serious about your body - by knowing it very well.
JEN: You also run. When did you start running?
REM: '74. In America. I was the typical European. That means either you're perfect, or not. But you're not perfectible. In Europe, the authentic is foREMost and anything related to sports is suspect. So I was thirty, and in America, and I discovered for the first time the virtues and pleasures of synthetic materials instead of cotton. Sports, for me, are about artificiality.
JEN: I heard that during the construction of the Dance Theater in The Hague you were trying to find a fabric the texture of American women's underwear. Nobody could imagine what you wanted.
REM: They didn't know! Anyway, it became incredibly exciting to overcome the European taboo. And running became interesting.
JEN: Were you trying to get in shape or did you just enjoy it?
REM: I enjoyed the intellectual side of it. I enjoyed it as an alternative to letting nature take its course.
JEN: That must have been the start of the running craze. Jim Fixx.
REM: Jim Fixx ? who died of a heart attack. And of course it was difficult because it was outside and I had never been outside.
JEN: In New York, you ran in Central Park?
REM: Yes. Around the reservoir, and Jackie Kennedy was there, and sometimes you were trailing Jackie and you would pass her and smell her ...
JEN: Jackie was also running?
REM: Yes. There are so many people I know as a kind of after-image of their smell. Seriously. An afterburn. You might not know who they are, but you know them incredibly well because you know how they move, and how they smell.
JEN: That must be why you make people nervous. You take in everything. People feel that.
REM: I can't ever be oblivious. I wrote a sentence today: "The tyranny of the oblivious ..." My whole life has been about envying the tyranny of the oblivious. And feeling the vulnerability of the ... recorder.
JEN: Of the what?
REM: Of those who record.
JEN: You call yourself a recorder.
REM: The thing is that I have a really intense, almost compulsive need to record. But it doesn't end there, because what I record is somehow transformed into a creative thing. There is a continuity. Recording is the beginning of a conceptual production. I am somehow collapsing the two ? recording and producing ? into a single event.
JEN: In that sense you're still a journalist. You study a situation and then report it. The Harvard Project on the City ? including your studies of shopping and Lagos, Nigeria ? seems to be a form of journalism.
REM: Well, shopping lead to my writing "Junkspace," which goes beyond journalism.
JEN: Why did you want to study shopping?
REM: I did the family shopping. In Indonesia, when I was eight, in a chauffeur-driven car. That was my first experience with shopping. Markets. That is why the Western experience of shopping is a disappointment. All goods are put in their places ? in compartments; there is no surprise. Shopping is based on certainties of what you get where. It's so sedate.
JEN: What made the Asian markets so alive?
REM: In Asian and African shopping, every transaction is also social, really charged. It's happening in the free air. That kind of condition is the urban realm. Here, what used to be free ? namely, the city ? has become private. You have to pay for it. There, it's still free. That's why we did the shopping book - to document, analyze, and interpret what was happening.
JEN: Wasn't there a time in the western world that shopping had that energy?
REM: In the shopping book we have reconstructed the transformation of shopping with these genealogical trees that document it almost step by step. The whole Harvard project is about modernization ? "Annals of Modernization" could be its subtitle. When air conditioning, escalators, and advertising appeared, shopping expanded its scale, but also limited its spontaneity. And it became much more predictable, almost scientific. What had once been the most surprising became the most manipulated. When shopping was still connected to the street it was also an intensification and articulation of the street. Now it has become utterly independent ? contained, controlled, surveyed. You could say the shopping project is also about nostalgia for a pre-modern condition.
JEN: But are any of those qualities things that you can ...
REM: Resurrect?
JEN: Yeah - would you have the ambition or interest to try to do that?
REM: I don't think you can actually do the same thing again. It's about the numbers of vendors, the scale of the operation. For instance, what you can get in Lagos is infinitely varied, but what you get here is a deliberate narrowing ? an undoing of variety to clarify brands and identities. That is the ambiguity of this moment: on the one hand, the possibilities are becoming limitless, but at the same time, the choices are becoming more coherent ? they form a single pattern, address a single group, and are becoming more exclusive.
JEN: Tell me more about what you're doing in Lagos.
REM: This time I was there with Edgar Cleyne, a photographer and an experienced Africa "recorder" who has been instrumental in the whole project. We borrowed the helicopter of President Obasanjo and flew over the city for two days.
JEN: What did you see?
REM: We made an unbelievable video about a traffic jam in Lagos, which is really scary because the sheer pressure makes everything liquefy. There are these jams that are mostly buses ? rivers of yellow trying to go through arteries that are too narrow. Huge trucks ? almost everything is public transport and trucks ? really colliding and squeezing. And in between them, there are these people ? almost like cement. According to the myth, they are dismantling the vehicles that are in the jam. Not only are you stuck in the jam ? you're also being disassembled. Maybe that's the only solution to the jam.
So it's not just a traffic jam. It's actually a traffic jam turning into a car market, turning into spare parts turning into a smoldering ruin. All in consecutive phases. It's really about metabolism and flows and scale. And unbelievable organization.
JEN: Organization? It sounds like a mess.
REM: Every residual space is put to use. There are these highway cloverleaves that lead to nowhere, but they are somehow cooperatively made into a car market. These cloverleaves are patterns of solid color, because all the car parts are organized according to color. That's how they exhibit them.
JEN: That must have been beautiful from a helicopter.
REM: The city has these unbelievable ? you can only call it abstract ? compositions. Red turning into white turning into black. You've never seen geometry at that scale in the world.
JEN: But why Lagos? What made you go there in the first place?
REM: Intuition. And I really think I was right. Nigeria's been independent for thirty years, so it's really an African story. With 100 million people, it's one of the most populated countries, and potentially the wealthiest. It has a complex history of colonization. For instance, Nigerian slaves exported by the Portuguese went back to Nigeria after they were liberated in Brazil and they imported Portuguese architecture to Lagos. It's like an infinite ricochet. And when they came back to Africa they became the authorities who controlled the people that never left. So that's an internal colonial situation. I like this connection to Africa because it's so unexpected, particularly for me.
JEN: Because you're so Dutch?
REM: Because I'm so "cynical." But seriously, aside from discovering Africa, I rediscovered the incredible pleasure of spending a week being free to just look and record. Nothing else. It was sheer reporting. It reinforced my instinct that it would be interesting to start making films again. In Africa, events have a tendency to disappear if you freeze them ? if you try to capture them in photographs. There were many moments when we thought we had captured something truly amazing, but when we looked at the photos there was actually nothing.
JEN: You mean it would seem like nothing to someone who didn't understand it?
REM: It's partly a matter of having to explain what you actually saw, but to a large extent there was a complete absence of the critical event that you wanted to record. Nigeria is simply an elusive country. That's probably because we are used to focusing in a certain way, but that is not necessarily the relevant way of looking there. The idea that the "real event" is a moment of crisis ? the moment when something is most clear ? is of course a very Western way of looking at things. Maybe the "real event" in Nigeria is a process ... a slow-motion form of survival.
JEN: Do the videos express this non-moment better than photography?
REM: The video Edgar made of the Miss Nigeria contest is working really well. The contestants were the only people without charisma in the whole of Nigeria. Even the babies have charisma. The video of the train journey that literally slices through the city is very different; it has incredible moments, but in between there is just vagueness.
JEN: Isn't that slowness what you want to capture?
REM: Also.
JEN: Do you know what the conclusion will be?
REM: Of course, there is no conclusion. Or maybe the conclusion is that there are other forms of intensity ... that we need a kind of unlearning to deal with it.
JEN: What has to be unlearned?
REM: The idea that you look for climactic events. Instead it's about the patience of spending an entire day waiting, and then doing something. In Nigeria, there is at the same time an incredible slowness and an incredible speed. So people who first seem capable of not acting at all are then suddenly capable of incredible action.
JEN: What kind of action?
REM: At almost any point in Lagos, there is, somewhere in the periphery of your vision, someone who seems to just slumber ? in the street, near a pool, at the station ? but who at any moment can turn into a money changer who, in five seconds, organizes the transfer of a huge physical amount of Nigerian money. That's only one example.
JEN: What will you do with the videos you made there?
REM: We'll experiment with presenting them at the Arc en R?ve show in Bordeaux. So I'm genuinely, carefully, considering some return to film. Basically as some extension of "recording."
JEN: And I heard you were working with your old friend Rene Daalder again.
REM: We're not really doing anything. We see each other. He's in Holland a lot. Eventually we'll do something. It's more of the same thing ... critical, intellectual. We're still the same people.
JEN: How old were you when you first met Rene?
REM: We met when we were sixteen. It was a typical adolescent relationship. Super-intense. Fears.
JEN: What's a typical adolescent relationship for Dutch boys?
REM: I'm not necessarily very Dutch, but ... ideas, exploring the world. What he would be, what I would be - a huge, shared, speculative explosion. We tried to exacerbate our identities, in a way. We were both outcasts, and we were both writing. He dropped out, went to film school. We were defining a certain culture for ourselves. It was the '60s. So there were all these adventures. The article you published in Hunch with Bart Lootsma is interesting ? he talks about how in '68 everyone was either a Provo, a hippie, or part of a revolution. But also there was a strong and more inspiring version of hardcore, modern, abstract, "alienated" modernity. An option beyond "hating" society and wanting to destroy it. More like re-engineering - wanting it to become even more artificial. That's how we felt. And that explains the ties, the suits. It's the same '68 impulse, but a different side of it.
JEN: Can you explain what he's been doing since then?
REM: Rene Daalder has been a Hollywood visionary since 1973. He's been on the forefront of digital innovation and computer simulation. In many ways, he's doing the things that we were speculating about. Recently, he's discovered architecture and he's been discovered by architects like Greg Lynn.
JEN: I want to talk about your work since S,M,L,XL because the book is where my personal involvement with your work stopped. Could you say that S,M,L,XL marks the end of a sort of adolescence in your career?
REM: I don't know of what, but it was definitely the end of something. You know the book was published at a moment of serious crisis in our office, so everything that happened since is part of the construction of a new office, the construction of a new way of looking at architecture that culminated in the founding of AMO. AMO doesn't stand for anything specific, but it could be Architecture Media Organization. OMA and AMO are like Siamese twins that were recently separated. We divide the entire field of architecture into two parts: one is actual building, mud, the huge effort of realizing a project; the other is virtual ? everything related to concepts and "pure" architectural thinking. The separation enables us to liberate architectural thinking from architectural practice. That inevitably leads to a further questioning of the need for architecture, but now our manner of questioning has changed: first we did it through buildings; now we can do it through intellectual activities parallel to building.
JEN: You're continuing what you've always done, but now you're making it explicit.
REM: Another thing that has happened since S,M,L,XL is the Harvard Project on the City ? a series of research projects that I'm doing with students at Harvard. For me, each topic that we've undertaken ? The Pearl River Delta, Shopping, The Roman City, and now Lagos ? started with an intuition. Somehow, that intuition seems to keep coinciding with preoccupations and events that occur in our office.
JEN: It's your sixth sense again.
REM: It must be. For instance, our research into China was an exploration of the whole notion of acceleration. We identified a speed of architectural production there that we thought never would happen in the West. But suddenly it is actually happening with our project in Porto: the concert hall is materializing at Chinese speed. And the concept for that concert hall actually came directly from a design for a house that we decided not to go through with. We decided to "transform" it under the impact of Nigerian brutality and directness.
JEN: So now you're running a Nigerian office in Rotterdam! Like when you were working on the housing in Fukuoka and you decided that the office would be more efficient if you started holding "Japanese" meetings.
REM: In a way it's the same. The other coincidence was that the experience with Prada involved us with shopping at precisely the moment we were completing the Harvard Guide to Shopping. Through the research, we were "ready" for it.
JEN: Where does your practice begin and end? With AMO, you can also be an architect of concepts, right?
REM: I'd say that my profession ends where architectural thinking ends ? architectural thinking in terms of thinking about programs and organizational structure. These abstractions play a role in many other disciplines, and those disciplines are now defining their "architectures" as well. There's a kind of multiplication of architectural activities. I don't feel that I'm becoming less of an architect, but more.
JEN: And with Prada, what are the boundaries? What is the extent of your involvement?
REM: They asked us to make a proposal for how they could manage their expansion without losing their reputation for adventure and experimentation. So it dealt with an explosion of scale - how they could REMain interesting or surprising in spite of their much greater presence. We addressed a series of strategic and organizational issues. Based on those factors, we defined what a store could be, and how the experience of a store could be extended. Then they asked us to do three stores. Complementary to those stores we're involved in defining their identity in virtual space. We're also working on technological advances that can make the experience of being in a store better - we're trying to reinvent the dressing room, the cash register; we're trying to REMove some of the traditional irritants of shopping. One of the irritants of shopping is that you always have to know exactly when you're in a store and when you're not, so we tried to blur the limits.
JEN: Where will the three stores be?
REM: In New York ? at the Guggenheim in Soho ? in Los Angeles, and in San Francisco.
JEN: What's the relation of the store to the Guggenheim Museum itself?
REM: In general you could say that museums have gravitated toward the commercial domain. So we want to make a Prada store in Soho that is still a store, but that can contract all its commercial elements into a single point and liberate the rest of the space for public events. It's startling how saturated with commercial space Soho is now. We thought that one unique thing Prada could offer is a degree of generosity toward the public ? that there doesn't always have to be heavy-handed commercial presence. At the same time, the Guggenheim is devising a design collection that doubles as a store. You'll be able to click on anything and have it delivered, even if it's a car.
JEN: So the Guggenheim has plugged into your idea of "MoMA Inc."
REM: MoMA Inc. itself has plugged into "MoMA Inc." They appointed a director of branding three weeks after the competition and are now discussing a system of stand-alone stores and a dotcom in collaboration with the Tate. It was an inevitable development. Actually, "MoMA Inc." wasn't an "idea," it was an observation. For a long time the Guggenheim has been more eager and more honest than MoMA about making those commercial tendencies explicit - it has embraced them wholeheartedly and aggressively.
JEN: What do you think about this alliance between art and fashion?
REM: That is part of the Harvard shopping book. Without anyone being too alert to it, the nature of the city has changed radically from the public to the private. The vast majority of urban substance that is built now is private. The major shift is that the city used to be free, and now you have to pay, whether it's a museum or a store.
JEN: So has it simply become accepted for museums to project their identity in such a commercial way? Is art being reduced to fashion, or is fashion getting more serious?
REM: I don't think it's simply about art and fashion. That's not the essential part. There is such a complete, across-the-board commodification today that expectations have shifted from a didactic experience to an entertainment. The shift from the public to the private is a shift to a completely new kind of market-driven demand that is made of the city. So the city has to perform in a completely different way, it has to "deliver" ? whether museums or stores. They are becoming a continuous spectrum. So I don't think it implies the convergence of art and fashion only.
JEN: And what is Prada's stand? Will these shops be more of these "don't touch" clothing museums like Comme des Gar?ons?
REM: Definitely not. They really emphasize the condition of stores selling matter and texture ? in an almost peasant-like way. There's almost a horror of overpretentiousness.
JEN: Well, I wouldn't be caught dead in those shoes with the red stripe on the heel. Even if I like the shoe!
REM: Part of our proposal is to eliminate the red stripe.
JEN: So - can you fill in the blank? This isn't shopping as entertainment, but shopping as what?
REM: It's shopping as shopping. It's about displaying goods and organizing the interaction between goods and people. And making it all as efficient as possible.
JEN: Now I want to talk about architecture as architecture. I asked you before about S,M,L,XL marking a rupture in your career and you answered by talking about how the structure of your office has changed. But what about your architectural work? How would you define the relationship of your recent work with the themes dealt with in S,M,L,XL? Are there certain themes that you are still trying to work out, or realize?
REM: There is, in current culture, a relentless demand for newness. But there are also certain themes in S,M,L,XL that were never realized but that would still be interesting to realize. There's also almost a degree of embarrassment because some of the themes have been partly realized by others. After S,M,L,XL I felt an obligation to do something new - it was very clearly imposed by that external expectation. At the same time, I wanted to resist that commercial pressure and ? where interesting or relevant or plausible ? maintain an interest in "old" things.
Jack Lang is again the Minister of Culture in France. I'm seeing him again to talk about actually building our Jussieu Library, which was from 1993. That would be very interesting because the concept in its pure form was about scale - to contain within a building the dimension of the urban experience. That's never really been done well. So there are some themes that continue. But in a formal sense there is also an entirely new chapter with buildings like the concert hall in Porto or the headquarters for Universal Studios, the library in Seattle, or IIT in Chicago, that have nothing to do with that.
JEN: If these buildings are a new chapter, what would you call it?
REM: I'm not ready to give that chapter a name. S,M,L,XL forced us to be very explicit about what we were doing - we felt an obligation to be our own commentators. Increasingly, I want to resist that. We want the relative freedom to hide our motives or develop many things simultaneously, and to avoid a coherence which is pREMaturely imposed. I see a number of themes that we are pursuing at the same time that are partly close and partly very different. I think the issue of speed is one theme; our work is more about different processes, different domains, than about formal qualities.
JEN: Do you think S,M,L,XL was too explicit? Did you give too much away?
REM: S,M,L,XL asserted the equivalence of things whether they were built or not. But it also gave many people access to our ideas. So I feel part of a very crowded field. Now we need new secrets.
JEN: I don't think I can interview you at this moment in time without asking how you feel about winning the Pritzker Prize.
REM: In no sequence of importance, it's exciting, it's a lot of money, it seems that for the first time in recent memory they gave it to another kind of architect, and they acknowledged that other fields, like writing, are also important. They adopted a certain kind of openness toward the definition of architecture in the 21st century, and a modification of the identity of the architect. That will be good for other people.
It's interesting that it came at the moment that we questioned the identity of OMA, or at least doubled it with that of AMO. The identity of our "signature" is also blurred by a number of collaborations with other offices, like the New York hotel we're doing with Herzog & de Meuron.
JEN: There are some people who have very specific goals that they are trying to reach in their lives and others who seem to wander into their accomplishments. Which do you think you are? Is there a certain contribution that you aspire to make?
REM: It's very simple and it has nothing to do with identifiable goals. It is to keep thinking about what architecture can be, in whatever form. That is an answer, isn't it? I think that S,M,L,XL has one beautiful ambiguity: it used the past to build a future and is very adamant about giving notice that this is not the end. That's how it felt to me, anyway. That is in itself evidence of a kind of discomfort with achievement measured in terms of identifiable entities, and an announcement that continuity of thinking in whatever form, around whatever subject, is the real ambition.
JEN: Maybe I'm not being as direct as I should be. Maybe I should just ask: What is your goal for the rest of your career?
REM: Then I'd still give the same answer. To keep thinking about what architecture could be. What I could be.
JEN: Could be or could do?
REM: Could be. Could do. Could do is more interesting. Be or do. That's in itself beautiful.
JEN: Be or do? Is that a choice?
REM: It's an oscillation

Posted on: 2006/9/19 14:36
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