This Week in Architecture: Master's Plans and Masterplans
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Rendering of BIG?s Waste-to-Energy Plant. Image Courtesy of BIG.
 JP Morgan Chase announced this week that they had hired Foster + Partners to design their new global headquarters in New York. The project, located in midtown Manhattan, will replace the existing 1960s SOM design for the US investment bank.This is not the first time Foster + Partners have been called in to handle a corporate headquarters project: the office is also responsible for the designs of the nearby Hearst Tower, Apple?s Campus in Silicon Valley, and the Stirling Prize-winning Bloomberg HQ in London.And while each of these structures are massive architectural achievements in and of themselves, it?s interesting to note the language the architects, developers, and clients wield when speaking about them. Corporate headquarters are definitively private, but all too often justify their massive impact on the urban fabric with vague promises of public space and access. What little is provided is more often due diligence for zoning permission than an earnest attempt to engage with the surroundings.
Bloomberg HQ. Image © Nigel Young
The language we use to describe architecture - and how big the gap between that language and reality is - speaks volumes about who these projects are really for. Often, it?s not even for the people who work in them.When structures become a commodity for remote viewers (specifically, shareholders) rather than an engaged participant in the urban fabri...
Rendering of BIG?s Waste-to-Energy Plant. Image Courtesy of BIG.
 JP Morgan Chase announced this week that they had hired Foster + Partners to design their new global headquarters in New York. The project, located in midtown Manhattan, will replace the existing 1960s SOM design for the US investment bank.This is not the first time Foster + Partners have been called in to handle a corporate headquarters project: the office is also responsible for the designs of the nearby Hearst Tower, Apple?s Campus in Silicon Valley, and the Stirling Prize-winning Bloomberg HQ in London.And while each of these structures are massive architectural achievements in and of themselves, it?s interesting to note the language the architects, developers, and clients wield when speaking about them. Corporate headquarters are definitively private, but all too often justify their massive impact on the urban fabric with vague promises of public space and access. What little is provided is more often due diligence for zoning permission than an earnest attempt to engage with the surroundings.
Bloomberg HQ. Image © Nigel Young
The language we use to describe architecture - and how big the gap between that language and reality is - speaks volumes about who these projects are really for. Often, it?s not even for the people who work in them.When structures become a commodity for remote viewers (specifically, shareholders) rather than an engaged participant in the urban fabri...
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