You're probably noticing that Brand Avenue looks slightly different. I felt the site was overdue for a bit of finesse, although its bones remain overwhelmingly the same.
In my opinion the end product breathes much easier--but feel free to comment!
In the meantime, consider the impact of these eye-popping manga renderings for the new 52-story William Beaver House condominium project ("housing rated NC-17"), currently under construction in Lower Manhattan:
Hotelier Andre Balazs, the creative force behind the William Beaver House, explains how the project, the images, and the architecture (glass-bottomed hot tubs, oversized showers, sunken conversation pits) all work hand-in-hand to establish a fantasy narrative:
Nearby...Balazs was talking quietly about “trying to fast-track creating a sense of community.” He explained that the name William Beaver and its attendant innuendos “seem to set an intellectual hurdle—you get it or you don’t.”
Balazs’s first apartment in New York was at 96 Greene Street. He began reminiscing fondly about watching the merchants who occupied the stories below him loading bundles of rags from the front landing. When he lived there, he was young and unattached and the building’s sole residential tenant.
You can even befriend the project (or, at least, its imaginary rodent namesake).
Nice n' clean. I like it. The link colors are much better now; that old yellow color was hard on the eyes. And I have I ever mentioned how much I love the gradient del.icio.us tags? Nice!
Posted by: John | 05/30/2007 at 08:53
"glass-bottomed hot tubs, oversized showers, sunken conversation pits" well, it's just some of the great ideas of this building, and more when I visited the website. Anyway, those are good manga renderings, I appreciate it.
Posted by: AM Putra | 05/31/2007 at 19:15
Does it seem to like it's marketed more towards guys than gals? Or am I just a prude, because I would NEVER use that glass-bottomed hot tub?
The manga pictures put out by the marketing team, as well as the advertised amenities, make it seem like a fantasy fraternity straight out of a National Lampoon movie.
Not that fraternities are necessarily a bad thing. I'm just curious to know whether young women professionals would really be interested in living there.
Also, I like the new look on your blog. I kind of miss the pic of the building at the top, but you're right--it's cleaner.
Posted by: Sonia | 06/01/2007 at 16:55
Hey John--thanks! Glad you like it.
AM Putra and Sonia--yeah, I agree with both of you--that the renderings are quite elegant, and also pretty masogynistic. Regardless, the combining of fantasy and reality in these images--the way that the architecture facilitates fantasy--is what really gets me, for better or for worse, all for the sake of selling an idealized lifestyle (to the young and male). The images promise a lot and I don't see how anyplace could possibly deliver, but then I suppose that's the hook. Perhaps it's that suspension of disbelief--that total hedonism does exist, and can be bought--that is the underlying power of the marketing.
Posted by: Chris | 06/02/2007 at 11:15