Spare Rooms

For his NYC debut, Tadao Ando brings his signature simplicity to the condo

The architecture boom that has gripped New York City for the past several years has left many indelible marks on the city’s skyline. Buildings by almost every big name architect jostle with each other for breathing room on Manhattan’s western waterfront, and designing a towering New York landmark is now de rigueur for a Pritzker Prize-winning architect. Yet for his first project in the Big Apple, Tadao Ando opted to create something on a significantly smaller scale.

The Japanese architect’s seven-storey, seven residence condominium, 152 Elizabeth Street, stands on a busy thoroughfare in Manhattan’s Nolita district. Instigated by the development firm Sumaida + Khurana and located on the site of a former garage, the concrete-and-glass structure took more than two years to construct. The newly completed building’s succinct design seamlessly brings together several Ando signatures. There are the grandiose bodies of poured-in-place concrete, elegantly detailed with circular formwork ties. Wide glass panels wrap the building on all sides and levels, producing an ethereal counterpoint to the stately concrete. These are brought together by beams of burnished metal, which form the structural skeleton of the building. A final exterior flourish, a green wall on the southern façade, brings a dash of nature to the built-up urban landscape.