New york University Philosophy Department - Steven Holl

Steven Holl Architects have completed an interior project at the Department of Philosophy in the Arts & Sciences faculty at New York University.

All photos are copyright Andy Ryan. Below is a short statement from the architects, followed by a press release:

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STEVEN HOLL ARCHITECTS

New York University (NYU)
Department of Philosophy
New York City, NY, USA
2004-2007

The Dean of the Faculty of Arts & Sciences and a committee of Philosophy Professors collaborated in the selection of Steven Holl Architects to design the complete interior renovation of a 1890 corner building at 5 Washington Place for the consolidation of the NYU Department or Philosophy within a concept which organizes the new spaces around light and phenomenal properties of materials.

A new stair shaft below a new skylight joins the 6-level building vertically with a shifting porosity of light and shadow that change seasonally.

The Ground level, utilized by the entire University, contains a new curvilinear wooden auditorium on a cork floor.

The upper level floors contain Faculty Offices and Seminar Rooms which are done in different shades and textures of black & white, according to the texts in Ludwig Wittgenstein’s book “Remarks on Colour”.

The building exits within the NoHo Historic District and is within the jurisdiction of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission.

The building is part of the main NYU campus within New York City’s Greenwich Village and is sited on-access to Washington Square Park.

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Press release

Steven Holl Architects’ completes interior project for NYU Department of Philosophy in New York City

New York City, October 2nd 2007 — With the opening of the new academic year, Steven Holl Architects has completed renovation of the interiors of an 1890 building at 3-5 Washington Place for the Department of Philosophy in the Faculty of Arts & Science at New York University (NYU).

Originally located in the Silver building, a mixed use facility for classrooms and academic departments, the Department of Philosophy is now consolidated new presence in both the city and on campus.

Although the historic exteriors remained untouched, the new interiors give the Department of Philosophy a luminous image.

The facility includes faculty and graduate student offices, seminar rooms, a periodicals library & lounge and a ground floor 120-seat cork auditorium. Steven Holl Architects organized the 30,000 square feet of interiors around a concept of the phenomenal properties of light and materials.

A new porous stair, changing its direction at each floor, vertically connects the six-level building through shifting light and shadow and is designed to encourage social interaction.

This vertical connection in light is activated by the presence of faculty members and students and by a prismatic film splitting the available sunlight periodically. The light effect in the stairwell changes according to the seasons and the time of day.

The upper level floors, containing the faculty offices and seminar rooms, have been designed in different shades and textures of black & white inspired by Ludwig Wittgenstein’s book “Remarks on Color”. Steven Holl Architects have designed furniture, coat hooks, light fixtures, and door handles for the Department of Philosophy.

In 2004 Steven Holl Architects was selected for the interior renovation by a joint committee of University Administrators, the Faculty of Arts & Science Dean’s Office and the Philosophy Department for the sensibility and philosophy in its work.

About the collaboration with NYU, Steven Holl says: ”University buildings need to focus as incubators for interaction between students and faculty. It was a pleasure working with this university that was willing to broaden its design approach by including our staircase that now functions as the backbone of the building.”

Steven Holl Architects is well-known for invigorating university campuses with innovative designs including The College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture at the University of Minnesota (Minneapolis, Minnesota, 2002), Simmons Hall at M.I.T. (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2002), the Higgins Hall Center Section at the School of Architecture at Pratt Institute (Brooklyn, NY, 2005), and most recently the School for Art & Art History at the University of Iowa (Iowa City, 2006).

Thankyou:http://www.archishu.com/

TWA Terminal @ JFK Airport by Eero Saarinen

TWA Flight Center was the original name for the Eero Saarinen designed Terminal 5 at Idlewild Airport — later called John F. Kennedy International Airport — for Trans World Airlines. The terminal had a futuristic air; The interior had wide glass windows that opened onto parked TWA jets; departing passengers would walk to planes through round, red-carpeted tubes. It was a far different structure and form than Saarinen's design for the current main terminal of Washington Dulles International Airport, which utilized mobile lounges to take passengers to airplanes.

Design of the terminal was awarded to Detroit-based Eero Saarinen and Associates. It was completed in 1962 and is the airport's most famous landmark (as well as being a National Historic Landmark). Gates in the terminal were close to the street and this made it difficult to create centralized ticketing and security checkpoints. This building was the first airline terminal to have closed circuit television, a central p/a system, baggage carousels, an electronic schedule board and precursors to the now ubiquitous baggage weigh-in scales. JFK was rare in the airport industry for having company owned and designed terminals; other airline terminals were built by Eastern Airlines and American Airlines. Individually branded terminals included the Worldport of Pan American World Airways and the Sundrome of National Airlines.




Following American Airlines' buyout of TWA in 2001, Terminal 5 went out of service. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey had proposed converting the main portion of the building into a restaurant and conference center, but some architectural critics opposed this move.

In December 2005, JetBlue, which occupies the adjacent Terminal 6, began construction of an expanded terminal facility, which will utilize the front portion of Saarinen's Terminal 5 as an entry point. The peripheral air-side parts of Terminal 5 have been demolished to make space for a mostly new terminal, which will have 26 gates and is expected to be complete by 2008. The building is under restoration and expansion by JetBlue.



Besides being well-known to JFK passengers and architectural buffs, it was also the site of filming of the Steven Spielberg movie Catch Me if You Can.