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Design

Architect Designs NYC Skyscraper Fit for a Khaleesi

We spoke to architect Mark Foster Gage about his plans to save New York City's skyline.
Mark Foster Gage Architects

A new proposal seeks to rock New York City's skyline with a facade covered in intricate sculptural details—specifically, gargoyles. Architect Mark Foster Gage released the design in protest of what he calls "boxes clad in steel and glass." The tower, planned for 41 W 57th St., gained the nickname "The Khaleesi" among Gage's staff, and really does look fit for a dragon-taming queen.

The 102-story, 1,492'-tall building would be residential, like the infamous 432 Park Avenue, offering breathtaking views of Central Park—but more importantly offering those in Central Park a breathtaking view of their own. "The goal was high levels of detail… 'High Resolution Architecture,' so to speak," Gage tells The Creators Project. "This is a different way of thinking about complex forms in architecture—that they don't need to be symbolically representative but just enjoyed for their formal qualities." Coated in limestone-tinted Taktl© concrete and bronze, the building would be almost unrecognizable from different vantages, as more or less detail becomes visible.

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Its height and position near Central Park make it inherently controversial, as New Yorkers have protested buildings that cast long shadows over the green haven in the past. Gage, however, also disagrees with an architectural community focused too heavily, in his opinion, on economy over art. He has taught architecture at Yale for the past decade and a half, and overseen buildings and art installations—including one at The Creators Project's 2010 worldwide event—citing his experience working with Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, Peter Eisenman, and more as proof of an upswing in the school of architecture he subscribes to. He quips, "Good design can be easy. Fun design can be easy. Great design is difficult."

We asked Gage about designing The Khaleesi, trends in architecture, and how to save New York's skyline.

Mark Foster Gage Architects

The Creators Project: Tell me about the conversation around naming the design "The Khaleesi." 

Mark Foster Gage: It's not really called that—that was the code-name we were calling it in the office. Two of my employees were really into Game of Thrones when we started working on it and it just kinda stuck. We also have a project code-named "Joffrey" which hasn't been released yet. So many code-name possibilities. We'll save Cersei for a really mean client. (No. We don't really have any mean clients.)

You've said that the gargoyles and sculptural elements aren't symbolic. Where did that imagery come from?

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We recycled unused digital models from a variety of sources online. We didn't really pick them for their symbolic value as much as their level of detail—the goal was high levels of detail not a narrative. "High Resolution Architecture," so to speak. This is a different way of thinking about complex forms in architecture—that they don't need to be symbolically representative but just enjoyed for their formal qualities. It also gives people viewing it the right to develop their own narratives—I've had people say the project was a steampunk Art Deco fantasy, or that it looked like Michelangelo had designed it, or it was for the new Ghostbusters movie, or it was Mordor, or it was all about Eagles (and therefore patriotic).

I have to say it's so much more interesting to hear these things than to program what people are "supposed" to think about a design. My dad was in town and looked up at the utterly unremarkable WTC project and asked if it was the "1776" tower. That's all he knows about it—that it was 1,776 feet high to represent the amount of time between the birth of Baby Jesus and the founding of the United States. That's so random. It also stops people from asking questions about architecture when they're "pre-given" the answer. How interesting is it to be asked "Who discovered America and what year did Columbus do it?" I am most drawn to buildings that entice curiosity and interest rather than ones that are one-line answers. The downside for me is that in the world of the tweet, people are forgetting how much richer things can be—that you can't fit into 140 characters.

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Mark Foster Gage Architects

Do you think more ornate, less-"glass box"-style buildings will be on the rise in New York in the coming years?

Absolutely. The immense success of residential projects like Robert A.M. Sterns' 15 Central Park West show an emerging and vast interest in projects that aren't just abstract boxes clad in off-the-shelf products. It pains me that so many architects today consider making a box (and sometimes cutting off a corner for an entry) and covering it with products to be design. I warn my students at Yale that there is a difference between architects who design and architects who are just product-pickers. I've had the privilege of teaching at Yale over the past 15 years with people like Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, Greg Lynn, Peter Eisenman, Richard Rogers, and a great deal more, and I can tell you that none of them are product pickers. They care about what they're doing and work their projects to death before they release them. Good design can be easy. Fun design can be easy. Great design is difficult.

Who's doing architecture right in NYC? What do you think of some of the other big ticket buildings that are in the works right now, like Bjarke Ingels' Two World Trade Center?

As far as WTC2- he's very into narrative and, as I mentioned before, giving people the answers before they've asked any questions. It's a very successful model economically—impressive from that standpoint. But I'm not generally drawn to things that are so easy. The provided reasoning behind the Two World Trade Center project was that there is a lower rise neighborhood on one side of the building and the tall WTC office buildings on the other—so it's smaller boxes on one side (to match the neighborhood) and reads as a tall singular box on the other (to match the office buildings). I'm not overly convinced that the "business in the front, party in the rear" narrative of a mullet necessarily makes the mullet itself any more interesting—so I'm not sure the same argument works that well for architecture.

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Mark Foster Gage Architects

What are you working on next? What's your next big move or design?

Keep your eyes peeled. We're working on everything from residential buildings, to stores, to fashion accessories, to makeup. We have this language we used for the 57th street tower (we call it "Kitbashing") that we've been developing for a few years, and it turns out alot of people in a lot of different industries are tired of the same old forms, and are interested in what else the 21st century can offer. Boxes clad in steel and glass are so last century. Computers and robotics are giving architects access to levels of complexity and more sculptural forms and details we haven't had in centuries—and my office is hopefully leading the march into these more detailed, complex, and beautiful territories of the 21st century.

Continue scrolling for a full look at the concept:

See more of Mark Foster Gage's work on his website.

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