Victor de Souza explore a fantasy world that combines elegant pastels and delicate ruffles with structured shoulders and silhouettes on silk blouses and dresses. The softness of the collection is offset with the occasional metal embellishment of shattered-glass embroidery.

These architectural pieces of modern romance appeal to the classic, yet experimental,women of today. With Pierrrot-inspired designs, one can see the power behind each piece. The strong, feminine shapes have both an avant-garde and futuristic feel while being light, playful and sophisticated.

Victor de Souza’s Spring 2010 collection is fitted and sophisticated with a futuristic edge and a touch of “armor.”  Key stylist, Mordechai, created a pulled back style with a rich, kink texture to it; to create almost a “helmet”.  The style is stark in the front however when the model turns, there’s also a romantic, feminine feel.

To achieve this look, he used the “figure 8 hair pin technique”, divided hair into sections then sprayed Phytovolume Actif to each section.  He then twisted the hair into a “figure 8” shape and closed the pins.

He then applied Phyto Pro Intense Volume Mousse and used a flat-iron to heat the hair and left it to set.  In the front, he used a crisper to create mixed textures.  After, he took everything out, brushed the hair and created a mattified look giving the hair a medieval feel.

He then brushed it back, and folded the hair to make it look like a cuff.  Victor uses cuffs in most of his collections and as of late has become his signature.  He finished the style with Phytolaque Soie light hold hairspray.

Joelle’s Tips:

The Designer: Victour De Souza

The Host: Michelle Harper ” The muse ”

The Stylist: Storm Pedersen

The Hair Stylist: Mordechai Alvow ( Watch the video it is amazing!)

The Hair Line : Phyto

The Make-up Artist: Yajara Velasquez

The Models are provided by Trump Modelng Agency, Q Models, Red Model Management, Major Model Management, Wilhemina Models

Sales: Caroline Vike – Vike@victorsouzany.com

The Space: EZ Studio

Watch the video  :  Victor de Souza Spring 2001

“We have tried to design a transparent building in the sense that we are not hiding what is happening behind the surface of the structure.”

Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa

The New Museum, the first major art museum to be constructed in downtown Manhattan in the city’s modern history.It is located on the Bowery on what was an 8,000 square foot parking lot and is New York’s only museum devoted exclusively to contemporary art.

Unlike MoMA or the Whitney, the New Museum is truly contemporary and is not suffering from an identity crisis. Designed by cutting-edge, Tokyo-based architects Sejima + Nishizawa/SANAA it opened on December 2007.

The seven-story composition – a stack of rectangular boxes shifted off axis in different directions, clad in silvery galvanized, zinc-plated steel, and punctuated by skylights and windows offering vistas and vignettes of the city -

They have designed a breathtaking facility that feature beautifully proportioned galleries, a theater, an education floor, a New Museum Store, a café, a top floor event space with roof terraces, and more.

The New Museum of Contemporary Art occupy its own freestanding, dedicated building for the first time in the institution’s history and will be the first art museum ever built from the ground up in downtown Manhattan.

The building’s form was conceived to express the ever-changing dynamic of the art and ideas to be presented within. Dramatic full floor, column-free exhibition spaces  occupy three main gallery levels.

The broad, light-washed ground floor space — named the Marcia Tucker Hall in honor of the New Museum’s late founder — is an animated public space where visitors will find the Museum’s acclaimed store

These features and spaces will provide a platform for the Museum’s far-reaching international programs, including exhibitions, installations, live presentations and performances, public education programs, and a highly original new global institutional partnership initiative, Museum as Hub.

At night, the building’s metallic exterior will be washed with artificial lighting from within.
Summarizing their approach to the design for the New Museum of Contemporary Art, SANAA has said:

“The solution emerged through an extensive period of trial and error. We made numerous study models based upon the New Museum’s program and the demands of the site, the zoning envelope. First we arrived at the notion of the boxes themselves; each one represents a specific piece of the program developed by the Museum.

Then we tried shifting the boxes to render the inside of the building more accommodating and open, with more possibilities for daylight to enter spaces and views to appear at various points in the interiors.

We designed the building from the inside out, based upon our understanding of the Museum’s needs.

Because of the kind of art the Museum shows and the curatorial approach they take, we wanted to design simple spaces – spaces without columns and with a lot of possibilities for different configurations, for placement of temporary dividing walls, and so forth – that would provide the widest range of options.

We do not believe that a building should overwhelm or compete with the art presented within it, particularly when it comes to contemporary art.  So we have tried to make spaces that are inviting but straightforward.”

Joelle’s Tips:

The Museum: New Museum 235 Bowery New York, NY 10002 / 212.219.1222
New York, NY 10002

The Architects: Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa SANAA LTD.
The Associate architects: Guggenheimer Architects, New York
The Project architect: Florian Idenburg
The Structural engineer: Guy Nordenson

The Main Photo:  photo of SANAA architect Kazuyo Sejima by Annie Leibovitz for Vogue (via Curbed). She’s holding a model of the building in her palm of her hand .

The High Line was built in the 1930s, as part of a massive public-private infrastructure project called the West Side Improvement. It lifted freight traffic 30 feet in the air, removing dangerous trains from the streets of Manhattan’s largest industrial district.

No trains have run on the High Line since 1980. Friends of the High Line, a community-based non-profit group, formed in 1999 in worked partnership with the City of New York to preserve and maintain the structure as an elevated public park  when the historic structure was under threat of demolition and created the public landscape with guidance from a diverse community of High Line supporters.

The High Line ,designed by an architectural team from Field Operations and Diller Scofidio + Renfro, is meant to offer a retreat from street life, a bucolic space floating 30 feet in the air with Hudson River views. Yet it will retain many elements of its gritty past: graffiti is prevalent on the buildings it winds through, and some of the rails have been restored in the park. That the park — which grew from an idea hatched in the 1990s into a $170 million project — exists at all is a marvel.

The project gained the City’s support in 2002. Much of the designers’ work has been devoted to seeking a balance between preserving what one called “the romance of the ruin” — wild grasses growing up through the metal skeleton of rails and rivets — and creating a fresh green corridor for pedestrians.

The High Line south of 30th Street was donated to the City by CSX Transportation Inc. in 2005. Condominiums, hotels and office buildings designed by architectural talent like Jean Nouvel, Annabelle Selldorf, Renzo Piano, and the Della Valle Bernheimer firm are sprouting along the park’s span.

André Balazs’s 18-story Standard Hotel, designed by Polshek Partnership Architects, is the only new building that rises directly over the elevated park. The towering structure is supported on massive concrete pillars, while a ground-floor restaurant and garden cafe are tucked underneath the High Line’s hefty steel frame.

Construction on the park began in 2006. The first portion of the three-section High Line, which runs near the Hudson River from Gansevoort Street to West 20th Street, is  open daily from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. There are entrances at Gansevoort Street (stairs) and at 16th Street (elevator); exits are located every few blocks.

The second phase, which extends to 30th Street, is under construction and expected to be completed by fall 2010. The third phase, up to 34th Street, has yet to be approved.The project has already transformed the area near its 22-block stretch near the river, prompting some of the most ambitious development in the city in years. The first two sections of the High Line cost $152 million, according to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, $44 million of which was raised by Friends of the High Line, the group that led the project.

The High Line runs through three of Manhattan’s most dynamic neighborhoods: the Meatpacking District, West Chelsea, and Hell’s Kitchen/Clinton. When the High Line was built in the 1930s, these neighborhoods were dominated by industrial and transportation uses. Now many of the warehouses and factories have been converted to art galleries, design studios, retailers, restaurants, museums, and residences.

The Meatpacking District

Much of the first section of the High Line is located in the Meatpacking District. Around 1900, the district was home to more than 250 slaughterhouses and meatpacking plants.Before the High Line was built, trains on street level, as well as barges and ships from the Hudson River, brought goods to the district for processing

When the High Line was built, it carried freight trains full of meat and other goods directly to the upper floors of these meatpacking plants and factories. In recent decades, as industrial uses have declined in New York City, the Meatpacking District has seen a resurgence of other uses. Its historic cobblestone streets and low-lying industrial buildings are now home to many restaurants, nightclubs, design and photography studios, and fashion boutiques.

When the High Line was built in the 1930s, these neighborhoods were dominated by industrial and transportation uses. Now many of the warehouses and factories have been converted to art galleries, design studios, retailers, restaurants, museums, and residences. Around 1900, the meatpacking district was home to more than 250 slaughterhouses and meatpacking plants. In recent decades, as industrial uses have declined in New York City, the Meatpacking District has seen a resurgence of other uses.

Before the High Line was built, trains on street level, as well as barges and ships from the Hudson River, brought goods to the district for processing. When the High Line was built, it carried freight trains full of meat and other goods directly to the upper floors of these meatpacking plants and factories.

Its historic cobblestone streets and low-lying industrial buildings are now home to many restaurants, nightclubs, design and photography studios, and fashion boutiques.

In 2003, following a community-led effort, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission established the Gansevoort Market Historic District in recognition of the neighborhood’s historical importance.

The corner of Gansevoort Street and Washington Street, at the High Line’s southern end, is the future location of a new Whitney Museum of American Art facility. Pre-construction has begun on the site, and the facility is currently projected to open in 2012. Visit the Whitney’s Web site for more information.

West Chelsea

To the north of the Meatpacking District is the neighborhood of West Chelsea, where the majority of the High Line is located. West Chelsea shares the industrial past of the Meatpacking District, with large factories and warehouses lining its streets and avenues. West Chelsea is now home to the world’s largest concentration of art galleries.

In 2005, much of West Chelsea was rezoned by the Department of City Planning, to allow for the High Line’s reuse, to encourage the continued use of former industrial spaces as art galleries, and to encourage economic growth through residential development along Tenth and Eleventh Avenues.

Much of Chelsea was, and continues to be, residential; its tree-lined blocks of historic townhouses earned part of it designation as the Chelsea Historic District in 1970, with an extension added in 1981.

The creation of another Historic District, in West Chelsea, was recently approved by the Landmarks Preservation Commission. This District focuses on the industrial history of the neighborhood, and includes many historically and architecturally significant factory and warehouse buildings.

Clinton / Hell’s Kitchen

The High Line’s northernmost section runs through the southern section of the Clinton / Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood. Much of this neighborhood was part of the 2005 Hudson Yards Rezoning, which was meant to encourage large-scale development and the improvement of transportation infrastructure.

In the next decade or so, this neighborhood will likely undergo significant changes to its built environment.

High-lining- Fashion Statements

According Bill Cunningham on a covaerage for the New York Times the High Line fashion message is of the future.

30 feet above the ground and through the buildings you can witness the most interesting and cool downtown fashion promenade. Unlike Fifth and Park Avenue the fashion belongs to the art  and downtown crowd.

Sportswear, minimalistic dresses  short and long over the ground and not overly expensive reflecting the look of the of Meat Packing District shops are all seen at the High Line .

But as mesmerizing as the design is, it is the height of the High Line that makes it so magical, and that has such a profound effect on how you view the city.

Joelle’s Tips:

The Suspended Park: The High Line

Photo Credits: Joelle Lifestyle / The High Line Flikr Pool

Source: The New York Time : The High Line

You hear things.

Rumors. Conjecture.

Loose talk.

A lounge. Madonna.

A hot tub. Lohan.

Floor to ceiling windows—in the bathroom—overlooking the city from 18 floors up. And you’re…intrigued.

But a little visual proof would be nice. Something to confirm that this Shangri-La, this new Studio 54, actually exists.

Well, feast your eyes on the first shots of the brand-new Boom Boom Room, a throwback to ’70s carefree decadence

and the latest fun pit at Andre Balazs’s game-changing Standard Hotel, open now for private parties and later this week to the public.

From now on, this is where you party—and we mean really party.

The space is split into two modern-retro rooms,

but you’re going to want to start by setting up camp in the main area, filled with wavy cream-colored leather banquettes, golden fireplaces and starburst chandeliers.

The other, more intimate room is decked in black tiles and includes a mischievous, triangular hot tub—right smack in the middle of the room.

The whole place has the feel of a party lounge Donald Trump would have built on his yacht in 1979, only 18 floors above the Meatpacking District and filled with the likes of Bar Refaeli and Karolina Kurkova.

Many others were among  Andre Balazs guests. Most pictured by Patrick McMullan.

Andrew Saffir Calvin Klein, Courtney Love, Devon Aoki, Donna Karan, Glenda Bailey, Jared Leto, Jesus Luz, Jon Bon Jovi, Josh Hartnett, Jude Law,Kyle MacLachlan, Linda Wells, Nacho Figueras, Rachel Zoe, Steven Klein, Tory Burch

Others included Mick Jagger’s girlfriend L’Wren Scott , Kirsten Dunst and Margherita Missoni.

Check more pictures on the  photogallery.

Joelle’s Tips:

Boom Boom Room : Hotel Standard

Photo credits: Courtesy Patrick Mc Mullan

Source and interior photo credit : Urban Daddy

After eye inaugurating their first three locations (Portland, Seattle, and Palm Springs) from a far, I  was psyched to learn ACE Hotel was finally opening an east coast locale in New York City. I got the chance to check out the newly opened location in Manhattan a few weeks back, click through for impressions and as always a hefty dose of pics.

Located on 20 West 29th St, the new Manhattan ACE Hotel is a sight to behold from the inside, but easy to miss on the outside.  The entrance is  dark and reminiscent of a men’s club Hemingway may have been part of, the beginning of a decidedly masculine vibed hotel.

There’s a bar, reading areas, bookshelves lined with antique books, vintage steel furniture, even a stuffed Badger.

Digging thing that springs to mind — nor is the area around 29th Street and Broadway. So the lobby of the recently opened Ace Hotel came as a pleasant surprise. The latest effort by the Northwest-based proprietors of hip yet reasonably priced lodgings (and its first on the East Coast) was designed by Robin Standefer and Stephen Alesch of the New York firm Roman and Williams, who turned a decrepit landmark 1904 building that formerly housed the Hotel Breslin into a haven of too-cool-for-school bohemian chic.

The 18-foot-high lobby space, with its original mosaic tile floor and carved plaster ceiling, embodies what Standefer calls “the anti-boutique hotel concept.” She and Alesch were looking for that sense of familiarity common to old hotels in Europe, where you feel as if you’re sitting in someone’s living room. A comfortable clutter of found objects — “New furniture wouldn’t be familiar enough,” Standefer said — fills the space, from stuffed birds to old laboratory tables to bachelor-pad sectional seating and plaid wing chairs.

Atop an old bookcase, a tray holds a raft of mercury glass flasks; a large blackboard at the back of the room broadcasts the cocktails du jour in the bar area. There are magazines and newspapers for browsing, and the occasional appearance of one of the old hotel’s residents (it used to be an SRO, and some people refused to move) gives the room a down-to-earth, communal vibe. And the wall behind the staircase is home to an installation by the artist Michael Anderson, who copied his collection of 20 years’ worth of graffiti tags and turned them into a graphic black-and-white collage.

Roman and Williams (who did the redesign of the Royalton as well as the interiors of the Standard Hotel and its restaurant, the Standard Grill) are currently at work on two other spaces in the Ace — a restaurant called the Breslin, which will be run by the Spotted Pig’s Ken Friedman and April Bloomfield, and a branch of Portland’s Stumptown Coffee (for which the designers chose a 1960s Milanese look). When both open in the fall, this still-scruffy neighborhood won’t know what hit it.

On one of their deluxe rooms, I was floored with the attention to detail. King size bed draped with a Pendleton blanket, desk with leather blotter, pencil and Weber sharpener (old school), beautiful ACE hotel stationary, and even a record player with a half dozen vinyls to choose from.

On top of a small school desk, the survival kit guide written in old typing machine fonts, starts like this:” Welcome to the Ace Hotel New York. I keep this short so you have more time to experience the hotel and the city. You’re in a historic landmark building that originally opened in 1904 as the Hotel Bresling.

It has undergone many changes in its long life. We have tried to preserve as many features as possible, like the ornate coffered ceilings  … Be adventurous take the subway it will take you down to Soho, Union Square or Chinatown….. If something doesn’t work properly tell us we know how to fix it  We are happy you are here… Thank you for sleeping with us Cheers .. all of us of Ace Hotel New York”

Even the bathroom was finished in subway tile, and the shower had a fantastic shower head (a much overlooked detail). Did I mention the old school ice box even stocked the High Life?

With every corner and detail uncovered, I found myself nodding thinking, “that would look great in my dream loft apt.” Of course, that was the purpose behind the hotel designers who have turned this early 19th century building into hotel  you could have only designed in your imagination.

ACE Hotel NYC continues to drop the exclusives on their staff. Kinda makes you want to work there just to get access to the collaboration goods. “The staff at the Portland Ace have worn Jack Purcell shoes since its debut, and for NYC, Ace is partnering with Converse on special Chuck Taylor All Star shoes. An American icon, Converse is indelibly linked with the independent spirit and attitude of countless musicians, artists and athletes. Simple, understated, synonymous with rock & roll and coveted by all walks of life, we think Converse is a perfect fit for Ace.”

It’s hard to describe cool with words, but when you stay at the ACE Hotel in Manhattan you just know. The pics should do the rest of the talking.

Joelle’s Tips

Photo credits: Graffiti mural: Photo: Douglas Lyle Thompson / Room : courtesy of Ace Hotel / Collage and source : T magazine- ‘ Study Hall – The Ace Hotel Lobby”  by Pilar Viladas

Located in Manhattan’s thriving Meatpacking District, the latest in hotelier Andre Balazs’ collection of Standard Hotels stands commandingly above The High Line, the former elevated railroad undergoing redevelopment as a public park.

Some buildings are coy about showing  what holds them up. The Standard Hotel flaunts its musculature—its naked concrete  piers ripple like a bodybuilder’s legs, heaving the glass-walled structure 60 feet in the air.

Those shapely supports hit the ground in a sensitive part of Manhattan, a knot of cobblestones and weathered brick that still release an occasional smell of butchered meat. It’s not a tough area anymore, but it is pleasingly rough to the touch. So is the Standard’s concrete, textured with the grain of wooden planks.

That’s how a big new building can fit neatly in a historic neighborhood—not by donning antique-y cornices, but by interpreting the spirit of a place.

Designed by Todd Schliemann of Polshek Partnership Architects for André Balazs, the Standard doesn’t apologize for its stature. At 265 feet tall, it’s hardly a monster, but it does present a raised fist to the low-slung meatpacking district. Get close-up, though, and the building nearly disappears.

At street level, a bar   occupy a one-story shed costumed like an old warehouse in recycled brick. And not to sound petulant, but, well, the beer garden— a massive, tree-lined, brick-encased courtyard, with picnic tables and plastic furniture. A place where starlets  could frolic about with beer, sausage and Ping-Pong paddles, and dreams would come true.

And for little over a week on any given night, you’ll find a crowd about 300 deep—think skinny blonde girls in sundresses, gents in button-downs, all enjoying a casual drink before challenging each other to table tennis, as sundown gives way to mood lighting.

Like the rest of the neighborhood, this structure offers a carefully stylized illusion of old-time grittiness.

Practically every room equipped with a stunning skyline or Hudson River vistas. Vast swaths of glass work to that end.

At full operation later this year, the hotel will have two restaurants and five bars (don’t miss the sunset views from the one on the 18th floor) and the building straddles the High Line, the freight railway that’s being turned into a much-hyped city park.

In some rooms, it’s possible to sit in the tub and see the Statue of Liberty. Draw the curtains if you don’t want to be an accidental exhibitionist. This might seem an odd time to open any hotel, much less the 39 scheduled for this year, but there are benefits to the room featuring unparalleled views of the Hudson River and Lower Manhattan, full business amenities, extensive event space and a state of the and fitness facility.

The designers Stephenen Alesh and Robin Standever ( nom de guerre is Roman & Williams)  picked up the job after beating out Yabu Pushelberg, and from the beginning there were a lot of opinions to balance. On top of the strength of André Balazs’s own vision—which means he is never an easy client—was the presence of Shawn Hausman (the designer of previous Standard ho-tels), Polshek Partnership which was responsible for the powerful, nearly brutalist tower straddling the High Line park, and a team of in-house designers.

In the guest rooms, the tambour walls and garnet bathroom tiles are classic Roman & Williams, somehow simultaneously evoking ocean liners and Span sh castles. But the hyper-modern lobby, with its long, green catwalk stretching to the curb, seems far too glossy. “André Balzas had a challenge for us in that he didn’t want objects that carried a lot of memory,” Alesch says. “He didn’t want it to emote, to remind him of something else.

We’re not the most nostalgic people ourselves, so it’s not a hard thing for us to be a little more icy or cleaner with our choices. We can leave nostalgia behind in a heartbeat. It’s no problem at all for us.” He doth protest too much. It’s easy to see that it’s not who they really are—in sharp contrast with the Ace experience.

Joelle’s Tips:

The Hotel: The Standard Hotel 848 Washington at 13th Street New York 10014
1 212 645-4646  Enquires :nyccontact@standardhotel.com

The Restaurant: The Standard Grill:  The hotel’s flagship restaurant like an Americanized Pastis, is already as jammed as Keith McNally’s still bustling brasserie. Eat the “Million Dollar” roasted chicken. pastry  are by chef Frederick Aquino last worked at Spice – 846 Washington St at 13th St New York, NY 10014  1 212-645-4100 Average ain course $ 20

The Beer Bar: The Standard Beer Garden. I recommend artfully double-fisting a bottle of Sam Smith Oatmeal Stout and a Summer Bramble before sidling up to one of two Ping-Pong tables. -848 Washington St New York, NY 10014  1 212-645-4646

Many were the people that traumatized decided to leave the crowded Metropolis known as the fascinating Gotham City, to live in calmer and less threatened sites.

In order to heal this psychological depressive factor, restore trust in the market and help developers,  certain zoning regulations were altered by the commissary office of the buildings department allowing new construction models to take place. Among them, the so called : ” Mixed Use Buildings” .

I decide to go on an expedition into the city  newest ” architectural monsters “  all  of  them of extreme vanguard  and some , still in construction.  In the company of  the Israeli architect Avi Oster who offered to be my personal guide and  architectural consultant, my inseparable Cannon G9 camera  in my hand, I start my itinerary at 8th street Downtown East . I am also ready to feature for Marcel Steiner’s  well-known Brazilian on- line review ” Olho Magico“ , a glorious article on the New Architecture in Manhattan.

While walking on a beautiful day, under a hot sun and a clear blue sky, Avi tells me that in the city , common minimum lots are between 18 and 25 feet, a very limited space for an architect’s dream to take place. In these circumstances he adds, the new laws allowed  to take the maximum advantage of the those limited spaces accommodating both residential and commercial needs in unique building, offering thus new opportunities for both builders and inhabitants.

Moreover,  the International architectural elite was called into the city to compete with the local architects starting with the Valencian Spanish architect, sculptor and structural engineer  Santiago Calatrava responsible  today for the idealization and creation of the new World Trade Center Transportation Hub, icon of the American financial success.This overall effort  has the intention to rejuvenate the city with a new vital energy establishing a fresh creativity in the sector of lifestyle and modern living habitat.

Assisted , I have managed to pick 5 of these extraordinary buildings as my favorites as per Marcel ’s feature request. The selection  by the way, was not  difficult as I had been standing in front of exclusive jewels  all without a doubt among the world’ s most  innovative realized within the last four years.

New Academic Building for The Cooper Union

The new academic facility is conceived as a stacked vertical piazza, contained within a semi-transparent envelope that articulates the classroom and laboratory spaces. The vertical campus is organized around a central atrium that rises to the full height of the building.

This connective volume, spanned by sky bridges, opens up view corridors across Third Avenue to the Foundation Building. The interior space configuration encourages interconnection between the school’s Engineering, Art, and Architecture departments. All institutional amenities – including meeting rooms, social space, seminar rooms, wireless hubs, restrooms, and phones – are located in the fifth and eighth story sky lobbies that surround the atrium.

The skip-stop elevator system makes trips exclusively to the fifth and eighth floors, drawing occupants to use, and congregate on, the grand stair; in practice, 50% of people will use the stairs as their sole means of circulation.

The building’s physical and visual permeability helps integrate the college into its neighborhood. At street level, the transparent facade invites the neighborhood to observe and to take part in the intensity of activity contained within. Many of the public functions (including retail space and a lobby exhibition gallery) are located at ground level, and a second gallery and a 200-seat auditorium are easily accessible from the street.

The open , accessible building is exemplary as sustainable, energy-efficient architecture. The building will be the first green academic laboratory building in New York City. A steel-and-glass skin improves the building’s performance through control of daylight, energy use, and selective natural ventilation.

The double skin system allows for heightened performance and dynamic composition on several levels: the operable panels create a continually moving pattern, provide surface variety on the facade, reduce the influx of heat radiation during the summer, and give users control over their interior environment and views to the outside.

40 Bond Street

The building, designed by the eminent Swiss architects Herzog de Meuron, is an architectural masterpiece. It is a radical redesign of a traditional cast iron building with utterly unique apartments and townhouses (the first townhouses built in generations). Both have unprecedented, innovative and sophisticated layouts, details and finishes. But the true revolution is in the idea itself, not merely in the look. It is a contemporary luxury lifestyle with maximum pleasure and minimum bother.

In a historic neighborhood containing the most magnificent cast iron buildings in the world the team of Herzog & de Meuron, widely regarded as the world’s most innovative architects, have radically reinvented the cast iron building. They have created a landmark for the future and a new standard in luxury living by combining a classic idea with modern technology and materials. 40 Bond is an inspired building that will set new standards in its plan, in its materials and even in the way it captures and transforms light, reflecting new possibilities of glass and steel in harmony with life.

In the 19th century the historic cast iron buildings of downtown Manhattan revolutionized architecture. They combined classical architectural motifs with the latest engineering and technology advances to create elegant buildings filled with an unprecedented degree of natural light. These dramatically functional yet decorous commercial structures were the first step towards modernism. In the 20th century these buildings were transformed by pioneering artists into spacious homes and studios whose open plans transformed the style in which city dwellers live today.

One of the most salient features of 40 Bond is an elaborate sculptural gate of cast aluminum. This twenty-two foot high and one hundred forty foot long “Gaudíesque” sculptural gate separates the front private gardens of the townhouses from the street. Jacques Herzog said that “when we decided to do gates it was essential that they integrate with the New York street, we wanted to create something solid, rough and chaotic…so we began to experiment with New York City street graffiti which became the starting point of the design.

” The gates individualize the façade of the building but, at the same time, the graffiti inspired design blends the building into the neighborhood. This cast aluminum wall appears as a vast work of art (in fact it is produced by a foundry that manufactures artist sculptures), an abstract expressionist sculpture echoing Pollock, Kline and Dubuffet. Yet, it is elegantly functional and defines the façade by establishing a distinctive New York City graffiti inspired graphic motif echoed throughout the building.

Effortless Luxury Living is the essence of 40 Bond, a sophisticated new concept in urban living created by Ian Schrager. For the first time, it combines all the benefits of home ownership with the services, privileges and amenities of a unique world class, five-star hotel. This is something that has never before been offered in apartment living. It is a new way of living…a carefree and effortless one.

100 / 11 Avenue  ‘Vision Machine’

View of 100 11th Avenue in context along Manhattan’s far West Side. In 1987, maverick French architect Jean Nouvel burst onto the international scene with a new headquarters for the Arab World Institute in Paris, one of President François Mitterrand’s Grands Projets. With mechanized oculi and veils of glass and steel, the building was hailed as an unconventional masterpiece that encouraged people to not only accept modern architecture in a historic setting, but to be thrilled by it.

Over ensuing years Nouvel has woven art, history, cultural references and new building technologies into provocative architectural contrasts between inside and outside, intimacy and the urban network, and has become renowned as one of the most original designers of his generation. In conjunction with the 20th anniversary of the opening of the Arab World Institute, construction has begun in New York City on Nouvel’s latest glass and steel landmark, a direct material and conceptual descendant of his Paris tour de force: 100 11th will be a 23-story tower described by its architect as “a vision machine” at the intersection of 19th Street and the West Side Highway, along the Hudson River in Manhattan.

The building’s gently curving curtain wall of different sized panes of colorless glass – each set in a unique angle and torque – will sheath one of the most meticulously customized, high performance residential addresses in the nation. This dazzling window pattern will frame splendid views from within the tower while producing an exterior texture that serves as a poetic analog for the vibrancy, density and changeability of New York City.

Nouvel describes 100 11th as “a vision machine,” with every angle and structural detail designed to create visual excitement. Approximately 1,650 different windowpanes comprise the most highly engineered and complex curtain wall ever constructed in New York City. The curtain wall of 100 11th captures daylight differently over the course of the day and the year. A surface that seems to brighten and go dark as if by computer program is, in fact,made dynamic by the movement of the Earth. These daily and seasonal changes will heighten your senses and foster a connection to nature.

The lobby is a dramatic transitional zone between the public life of the street outside and the privacy of individual homes in the tower above. Soft controlled lighting and dark monochromatic walls will create a theatrical but peaceful atmosphere that contrasts with the reflection and animation of the building’s exterior. Enormous punched windows provide views of the building’s tree-filled garden.

By raising the restaurant and other public functions of the ground floor to 4′ above grade and sculpting a concrete base, Nouvel has created a perfect balance between pedestrian activity and the lively atmosphere of interiors. Views from the sidewalk of the restaurant animate the street and further catalyze the neighborhood’s ongoing transformation located to allow for a broad variety of furniture configurations that take full advantage of the light and views.

The building’s pool is designed so that residents may swim comfortably indoors or outdoors, depending upon the weather. A portion of the pool is sheltered within the building’s structure, while the balance of its length extends into a landscaped outdoor space. A glass partition has been customized to enclose the indoor portion of the pool during winter months or inclement weather, so that the indoor portion remains fully operative and warm at all times.

Within a framework of glass, steel, and concrete, a six-story vertical garden blooms. From planting boxes built into the structure, trees soar upward and plants cascade down the walls, lending their scent to the atmosphere.

IAC/ InterActiveCorp

This $62 million, 10-story office building in Manhattan’s Chelsea District will serve as the East Coast headquarters of IAC/ InterActiveCorp, a prominent multi-media firm. Designed by renowned Architect Frank Ghery, the building is located between 18th and 19th Streets, across from the Chelsea Pier in Manhattan.

The gross area of the building is 550,000 square feet which includes retail space in the lower floors and typical office space above the 7th floor. The building is reminiscent of the boat sails on the adjacent Hudson River. The billowing exterior curtain wall was sculpted with a glass-façade to produce dramatic angles and spectacular views for the interior office spaces. DeSimone Consulting Engineers of New York City designed a gravity defying concrete frame with a typical 12-inch flat-plate concrete floor with spans up to 35 feet.

To accommodate this untraditional architectural design; the structural engineering office of Only two columns are truly vertical. All other columns have some degree of inclination—up to 25 degrees from vertical. The reinforced concrete shear walls in the core counteract the twisting effect of the columns to stabilize the structure. The floor slabs also include numerous openings which offer interior views of the building.

IAC is an electronic and new-media conglomerate that includes the Home Shopping Network and more than 60 Web-oriented brands, such as Ticketmaster, Expedia, Lending Tree, Citysearch, and Match.com. The new IAC Building’s dynamic form reflects the aggregation of these diversified brands under one roof.

The Iac building also utilizes the most advanced technological amenities, including the world’s largest high resolution video wall, ubiquitous WI-FI access and modular meeting spaces equipped with the high definition conferencing and customized internet access equipment.

STUDIOS Architecture’s interior design makes clever use of customized, 120-degree workstations that stretch out across the irregular floor plates, folding into the unusual spaces created by the building’s fluctuating envelope. Contrasting the ethereal palette of the curtain wall, STUDIOS punctuated the muted interior spaces with incidents of color, developing an eclectic aesthetic to suit the client.IAC is among a number of forces stoking the revitalization of the West Chelsea neighborhood. Opening up to its new neighbors, the ground floor of the IAC is a “living room” space for the community.

Galleries and nonprofit organizations host events in the lobby, which boasts one of the world’s largest HD-quality rear projection screens. Gehry may not have stamped his long-awaited signature onto the New York skyline, yet with IAC he has created a building that brings identity to a neighborhood in flux and to a corporation whose distinct entities can now function as a more effective conglomerate.

3W13

Finally the last stop. I am getting really tired of this expedition. I feel a little melancholic, possibly because I have worked non stop for more than 36 hours featuring these extraordinary architectural  marvels and the magic of this tour has soon come close to its end. I need to get re -freshened with something new, something different, something that still will surprise me, something that is already functioning and alive.

It’s already 10 o clock at night. Avi Oster is smiling, for some reason he knows he will provide with the surprise I need. And here it is. It’s called 3W13. Wow! Looking up to a very narrow incrustation building  between two others as small, illuminated from top to bottom. ” Is  there a party taking place  ? ” I ask.

Oster , laughing now , explains that his building signature is directly linked to a concept called  “Mood Street “. It’s basic principle consists in stimulating and elevate the senses of the individual passing by in the street, as well as of it’s inhabitants.

Through a sophisticated mechanism of  led illumination in different tones, war in the summer and cold in winter time,the facade illumination changes intensity through a system of LED  lights  controlled by a monitored panel, sensitive to heat and to the presence of street  pedestrian passing by the building.

Not happy  only  with the ” Mood Street ” concept, Avi Oster , created for 3w13 another interesting one : The ” Window into a Window” concept. Because of the residential laws of the building department windows must be enabled  to open at all times.  The 3W13 facade has two sorts of windows:  those that  will allow the building’s inhabitants  to integrate perfectly with the street life through a floor to ceiling view and  smaller windows frames  designed to fit right in the middle of the glass panels as to catch the moving reality like in a picture allowing full integration when open to breath  fresh air.

Fascinated with all the interesting concepts , I realize that Cristiano Cora, the  owner of the Cristiano Cora Studio a hair salon  in the 3W13 is in front of us talking to Oster looking  attentively at my poor thirsty hair. Oster,  author of the salon design explains that since today that most beauty salons are focused only on their sevices , his  goal in this project was  to explore a new approach to  the process of a women’ s transformation into the space. The challenge was to find elegant solutions through the use of  technology as a production line system and the language of minimalism, to achieve both cocooning and the incubation of the “hair form” itself.

Suggestive indirect light, the organic form, surrounding acoustics and the unlimited interactions of the structural elements of the space transform users to a dimension of infinite lightness of being.

I am not listening anymore. I am stopping right there. Gotham , it’s  lightness of being and  it’s new transformation into the  space  …..is what at the moment I want to focus  on while I get my hair scalp massaged from the past.

Joelle’s Tips:

The buildings:

New Academic Building for The Cooper Union

Design : 2004/2006

Costruction : 2006/2009

Arquitect:Tom Mayne of Morphosis

Type: Academic

Website: New Academic Building for The Cooper Union | Morphopedia | Morphosis Architects

40 Bond Street

Designer:  Jaques Herzok and Pierre de Meuron of Basel

Construction:2005/2008

Type: Residencial and Lifestyle Management

Website: 40 Bond Street

100 / 11 Avenue  ‘Vision Machine’

Designer: Jean Nouvel

Construction: 2206/2009

Type: Residencial Commrcial

Website: 100/11 Avenue ‘ Vision Machine’

3W13

Designer: Avi Oster

Construction:2006 /

Type: Residential Commercial

Many have tried to look ‘Like a Virgin’. Britney Spears, Cristina Aguilera and most recently, Lindsey Lohan. None have been as popular as Lourdes Maria Ciccone Leon, known by many as Lola. Madonna’s daughter strikes a pose playing a role in her mother’s new videoclip: ” Celebration”.

The video of Madonna’s new single ‘Celebration,’ the title track of her upcoming greatest hits album. The material girl shows off her dance moves in thigh-high Louboutin boots and a dress short enough to allow for plenty of gyration and crotch-touching shots.

Around 2:20, Madonna’s boy toy Jesus Luz enters. He is playing a DJ, which is his real-life dream. Madge touches herself some more, realizes she must remove Jesus’ clothes to recognize him, then makes out with him.

Lourdes, Madonna’s 12-year-old daughter,  makes a cameo as a dancer towards the end of the video. Madonna is currently on her ‘Sticky & Sweet’ tour in Europe, and has made time for visiting Jewish Holy sites with Jesus and speaking out on behalf of the Gypsies. You can download the ‘Celebration’ video free on iTunes until September 3  for free by following this link.

Like Mother like daughter what a blessing.

Last Sunday, a very rainy day I went to watch Marc Jacobs wear a red-and-black plaid kilt with black combat boots for a discussion with T magazine editor Stefano Tonchi, part of the TimesTalks series. Though it was the day before the Met ball , Jacobs was confident, relaxed, and tan, as usual. So was I, my friends and my G9 Cannon Powershot.

For more than an hour, he answered questions about Facebook (he doesn’t have a profile and he canceled his MySpace account, thankyouverymuch), diversity on the runways, and the significance to him of a red-carpet moment (not much). Highlights:

He’s not afraid to ask the hard questions.
“I don’t feel like I make red-carpet clothes. Once in a while, someone will choose to wear something, but it’s just not my thing. I’ve never pursued it. I feel like it’s Andy Warhol’s future, where everyone has their fifteen minutes of fame. There are twenty channels reporting on what Paris Hilton wore on the red carpet. Who gives a rat’s ass? What is Paris Hilton famous for?”

When it comes to diversity on the runways …
“I’m not trying to seat the U.N. I’m casting a show. But I love a variety of girls. I’m not trying to do a Benetton campaign, but I have for years done one look per girl, so if I have 54 looks, I have 54 girls. But they do all have in common being slim and tall. That doesn’t mean that the clothes don’t exist in larger sizes, or that larger sizes shouldn’t wear them, but that’s how we choose to show them.”

Despite his eighties-tastic fall 2009 collection, he doesn’t remember that decade.
“I don’t remember a thing! It’s like what they say about the sixties, if you remember it, you weren’t having enough fun.”

“I went to clubs. I was there, but I wasn’t part of the cliques. I’m a bit socially uncomfortable, but I’m a very good spectator. I was very much a sponge for where there was energy. I remember going to the Roxy and seeing Madonna dancing. Half the people didn’t know who she was. ”

His French sucks. (He’s just like us!)
“If you have five minutes free in New York, you’re a failure. If you have five minutes free in Paris, you’re a success. I have a nice quiet life there. My French sucks. I’m so ashamed. It’s been eleven years and I still can’t conjugate verbs.”

His job is simple, really.
“I do get surprised and delighted still at my ripe old age of 46. [Designing clothes is] still what I want to do. It’s a joy. But you journalists embody us with these brilliant thoughts. We just want to make some clothes.”

He will not make dishes for JCPenney.
“When I got into this business, licensing was a big thing. I don’t think that it’s about that anymore. One doesn’t have to sign themselves up for this lifestyle their mugs in their kitchen will reflect. I remember when Halston did that thing with JCPenney, it was very bad for his couture business.”

He hogs the bathroom and he’s not ashamed of it.
“My doctor said I had to find the time every day to laugh, to rest, to eat well, to exercise and sweat. And then I found I liked spending two hours a day in the bathroom and telling people which skin-care products worked and choosing which skirt to wear.”

He wants babies with his fiancé, Lorenzo Martone!!
“I don’t want to get all political, but I don’t ever want to be told who to love or how to love. Marriage is not just a heterosexual institution. Lorenzo and I are getting married. We’re buying a house together, we want to have children.* There needs to be some protection in place in case something should happen to one of us. It’s not all rice throwing and a bouquet.”

Joelle’s Tips:

The event:  Times Talks / TheTimesCenter, 242 West 41st Street . Between 7th and 8th Avenue New York City

The Source:  The Cut by Jennifer Miller

Photo with The Muse Kate Moss:  Credit: Anne Leibovitz for Vogue / with Joelle: Cedric Eibender