Ateliers Jean Nouvel
100 11th Avenue
New York, NY
“The design captures and celebrates the incredible light, air and urban fabric of Manhattan’s industrial waterfront.”
Craig Wood

Photo courtesy Ateliers Jean Nouvel
Construction has begun on the 23-story tower, described by Nouvel as “a vision machine,” at the intersection of 19th Street and the West Side Highway, along the Hudson River in Manhattan. The glass and steel building is a direct material and conceptual descendant of Nouvel’s 1987 Headquarters for the Arab World Institute in Paris.

Photo © ArchPartners
The main south curtain wall is comprised of approximately 1,647 completely different colorless windowpanes organized within enormous steel-framed “megapanels” that range from 11 to 16 feet tall and as wide as 37 feet across.
Each windowpane inside these megapanels is tilted at a different angle and in a different direction up, down, in, out - bearing a slightly different degree of transparency.

Rendering © dbox

Image courtesy Ateliers Jean Nouvel
Study for the mosaic-like curtain wall.
By contrast, the north and east facades will be clad in black brick that references the masonry characteristic of West Chelsea’s industrial architecture. These facades will also contain a complex pattern of different-sized punched windows framing dramatic views from inside.
A seven story free-standing “screen” of densely mullioned glass, a near repeat of the main facade’s steel-framed mosaic pattern, is placed 15 feet from the building’s south facade.
The space created between the tower’s multifaceted glass curtain wall and this street wall screen forms a semi-enclosed atrium, called “The Loggia.” Within this atrium fully-grown trees and beds of ornamental plantings, placed within the grid, will appear to float in mid-air.

Image courtesy Ateliers Jean Nouvel
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Rendering courtesy Ateliers Jean Nouvel
At 70 feet long, the building’s mirror-canopied pool will be one of the longest in Manhattan. The majority of the pool is sheltered within the building’s structure, with 24 feet extending into a landscaped outdoor space (the lower tier of the garden).

Image courtesy Ateliers Jean Nouvel
View looking down onto the two-tiered private garden with section of the swimming pool protruding at lower level.
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Rendering courtesy Atelier Jean Nouvel
In the 20 foot-high ceiling lobby enormous, single-pane punched windows of different textures and degrees of transparency will face the building’s private multitiered slope garden on the north side of the building, bringing nature indoors.

Image courtesy Ateliers Jean Nouvel
The palette of apartment interiors is pale and materials have been chosen to achieve maximum luminosity, with an overall look inspired by the sleek minimalism of the neighborhood’s many contemporary art galleries.

Photo © dbox

Photo © dbox
Elevator shafts will contain random LED lighting and full-scale punched windows, so that passengers in glass-walled cabs can see city vistas as they ascend at 450 feet per minute, while twinkling light patterns are visible from elsewhere in the neighborhood.
The building will contain 72 residences and be LEED certified.
Estimated completion: Fall 2008
Architect: Atelier Jean Nouvel
Executive architects:
Beyer Blinder Belle Architects & Planners, LLP
Partner in charge: John H. Beyer
Developer: Cape Advisors Inc/Craig Wood
Associate developer: Alf Naman Real Estate Advisors
General contractor: Gotham Construction Corporation, Inc.
Ateliers Jean Nouvel arcspace features
April 2, 2007
