High flyer: a vision of Jean Nouvel’s addition to New York’s soaring skyline

At Manhattan's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) on Monday night, a sleek crowd, including architect Richard Meier and former New York Times architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff, gathered to fete French architect Jean Nouvel, whose tallest building to date is under construction next door at 53 West 53rd St.
Dubbed 53W53, the 1,050-feet-high residential skyscraper makes use of air rights purchased from MoMA and other nearby buildings to provide views of Central Park and the city's skyline. 'When you are inside, you will feel you are in the sky in New York City,' says Nouvel. Officially, the event at MoMA - during which Vanity Fair contributing editor and filmmaker Matt Tyrnauer interviewed the soft-spoken architect - marked the commencement of sales of the tower's 140 luxury units. Unofficially, the swanky affair that spilled out into MoMA's Sculpture Garden was the beginning of the PR machine surrounding the building, slated for completion in 2018.
The elegant tower, with its glass and exposed steel diagrid structure, will create one-of-a-kind floor plans in the condominiums, ranging from one-bedrooms to duplex penthouses and full-floor layouts. Each unit will have sloping windows and muscular, slanting columns, giving New York-based interior designer Thierry W. Despont a challenging set of parameters.
53W53, which joins Manhattan's new slew of supertalls, has weathered its own share of controversy since it was announced in 2007. Torquing at subtle, oblique angles ('like a snake,' says Nouvel) as it tapers to a sharp summit, the tower was originally slated to be 1,250 feet tall, but neighbours balked and the city asked the architect and developer Hines to lower it (Hines is partnering with Goldman Sachs and Singapore-based Pontiac Land Group on the development).
Then in January 2014, MoMA, who sold 53W53's 18,000-square-foot lot to Hines and Goldman Sachs in 2007, decided to raze the adjacent Folk Art Museum, designed by Tod Williams and Billie Tsien. A future museum expansion by Diller Scofidio + Renfro will link to three of 53W53's lower floors which will be accessed from and connected to MoMA. The replacement of the Folk Art Museum raised cries of protest from architects, critics and the public, who lauded its small galleries and faceted bronze façade. Nouvel, who said the Folk Art Museum was 'a very interesting building' and claimed to be shocked by its disappearance from the site next to his tower, said that keeping the Folk Art's façade and gutting the interior, as was once suggested, didn't make sense.
On Monday night, Tyrnauer showed a brief clip of a documentary he is making about Nouvel before interviewing the architect. When Tyrnauer asked Nouvel about his creative process, he replied that he has to spend some amount of time lying in bed with an eye mask on and earphones in, thinking about his work. 'I don't want to see the light,' he said, eliciting laughs from the crowd. 'The light is inside.'
Thierry W. Despont has been commissioned with the interior design of the tower, which, with its glass and exposed steel diagrid structure, will create one-of-a-kind floor plans throughout
Wallpaper* Newsletter
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox.
-
This Gujarat apartment by MuseLAB is a sculptural, textural delight
A study in materiality, this apartment in Gujarat, India layers idiosyncratic details while staying true to its provenance, and is the latest focus of The Inside Story, our series spotlighting intriguing and innovative interior design
By Anna Solomon Published
-
BMW celebrates half a century of its pioneering Art Car project with exhibitions and more
We present a portfolio of the artists who have contributed to 50 years of BMW Art Cars, including Andy Warhol, John Baldessari, Jenny Holzer and David Hockney
By Jonathan Bell Published
-
TEFAF Maastricht 2025 is a brush with wonderfully niche art, design and antiquities
What we saw and loved at TEFAF Maastricht 2025 (on until 20 March), from surrealist Claude Lalanne’s daybed and Ancient Egyptian jewellery
By Harriet Quick Published
-
Step inside a writer's Richard Neutra-designed apartment in Los Angeles
Michael Webb, invites us into his LA home – a showcase of modernist living
By Michael Webb Published
-
Join our world tour of contemporary homes across five continents
We take a world tour of contemporary homes, exploring case studies of how we live; we make five stops across five continents
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
The Architecture of Seduction: how Horace Gifford built a modernist, queer paradise
Fire Island is explored through a new edition of Christopher Rawlins’ seminal architectural and social history book on the life and work of Horace Gifford
By Jonathan Bell Published
-
Step inside this furniture gallerist's live-work space by Steven Holl in upstate New York
Designed by Steven Holl for modern furniture gallerists Mark McDonald and Dwayne Resnick, this live-work space in upstate New York is a midcentury collector’s paradise
By Michael Webb Published
-
The museum of the future: how architects are redefining cultural landmarks
What does the museum of the future look like? As art evolves, so do the spaces that house it – pushing architects to rethink form and function
By Katherine McGrath Published
-
Remembering architect Ricardo Scofidio (1935 – 2025)
Ricardo Scofidio, seminal architect and co-founder of Diller Scofidio + Renfro, has died, aged 89; we honour his passing and celebrate his life
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
Is the U.S. about to sell dozens of architecturally-significant government buildings?
It depends, the Trump administration says
By Anna Fixsen Published
-
NYC's The New Museum announces an OMA-designed extension
OMA partners including Rem Koolhas and Shohei Shigematsu are designing a new building for Manhattan's only dedicated contemporary art museum
By Anna Solomon Published