There is this building outside the windows of the 29th floor. I have spent a lot of time studying it and trying to figure out what makes it so perfect in my mind. I have no answers. Its big, and tall, and black. Which makes it very modern to me. And I know what I am saying when I use the term modern instead of contemporary. I think this building is very modern. It has the most perfect and powerful lines of any building in midtown. There are no decorative features. It just is its large and imposing self. So powerful in its simple plain form. As with the nightmare stairs, it is more imposing when viewed in person.
I once took a walk over to it to see if it was as imposing from the ground. I sat in the little park area at its base (its that touch of green in the second photo). It is a good place to sit and talk to a friend. I felt safe sitting in its shadow. It doesn't try to be anything other than what it is and was meant to be. A place to work. A structure among structures, implanted on a tiny square of space, crowded by the less worthy. It is the personification of what I would imagine Roark would have put there. He would have designed it in his bare studio and starved to have someone build it and after its construction, those who criticized it would have only done so out of jealousy of his genius.
2 comments:
Ahh, the spot of green in the 2nd photo.. What's the name of the building? I think I can see how it might be so appealing- such a simple design with no tension in it- massive in a way but also without much of a reference point to it's size (unless you look at the odd and clumsy buildings next to it. Maybe you should go around taking pictures of it from the 29th floor of other buildings. I'd better go look up Roark.
..when looking up Roark, it would be prudent to start with "The Fountainhead" since he is a character there..let me know what else your Google turned up though that must have been interesting..
dpv
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