MANHATTAN'S FIN-DE-SIECLE CREATIVITY-DRIVEN NEW MEDIA ZONE, dubbed Silicon Alley, had a kind of mystique that derived as much from it's virtual invisibility as from its 24/7 ethos. Only after the dot.com crash, when moving vans began lining up after dark to cart away desks and Aero chairs, and neighborhood lamp posts sprouted office equipment sale flyers, did its geography become evident. By 2001, a short-lived era had ended and a place-name fell out of use.

Flash Forward Five Years: Geographic definition of New York as the media/entertainment capital - with
the area from Times Square to Columbus Circle its nerve center - is one step further assured. Hearst
Tower, the city's newest architectural salute to empire, has completed its summer-long occupancy
schedule, and has captivated savvy New Yorkers with an appetite for the new.

Designed by acclaimed British architect Sir Norman Foster, this shimmering 46-story glass-and-steel skyscraper is the city's jazziest new building of the current mega-structure boom. The assignment - to place a new tower atop the six story art deco International Magazine Building, which was commissioned in 1926 by William Randolph Hearst to house the 12 magazines he owned at the time - must have seemed somewhat daunting.

The original building, located at 57th Street and Eighth Avenue, always struck me as an architectural folly that somehow escaped a Hollywood sound stage rather than an office building where people actually worked. Seen from my perch on the eponymous statue at Columbus Circle though, the new tower reigns over the cityscape. Its gleaming faceted facade leaps skyward with panache, making the same-same structures comprising the Time Warner Center to my right seem even more banal by comparison. Bedazzled by its stylish and unconventional form, my eyes only later drift downward to take in the original building, now completely restored and re-envisioned as a majestic, multistory entrance with a cascading waterfall that, in fact, is integral to the building's energy-saving air conditioning system.

The new tower will be primarily occupied by the 20 Hearst magazines; the highly diversified Hearst Corporation has many out-of-town operations, including newspapers, broadcast and entertainment properties. Its angled glass window walls offer spectacular views of Central Park and not surprisingly, corporate hierarchy reigns from the top down. Conference rooms occupy the 44th floor, with corporate offices on the 43rd followed by individual magazine starting with Cosmopolitan, Hearst's most profitable, on the 38th, and O: the Oprah Magazine on 36.

Not only is Hearst Tower an architectural gem, it also represents a new paradigm for sustainable architecture. From the angled diagrid façade, with daylight sensors that reduce energy usage, to the 3-storey Ice Falls, which collects rainwater to cool the original structure, to its chemical-free carpeting made of 100% recycled material, Foster's masterwork is New York's first structure to receive a solid gold rating from the U.S. Green Building Council.

Photo: ©Frederick Charles 2006, fcharles.com
Click to view Fred's Hearst Tower portfolio.

More about the tower's luxurious amenities, its energy-saving design and architect Sir Norman Foster:

Sir Norman Foster

Paul Goldberger's review in the New Yorker