Cooper Square Hotel Fully Revealed
Thursday, February 15, 2007, by Pete
After we posted yesterday's sneak peak of the design for the new Cooper Square Hotel going up on The Bowery, an interested citizen sent us this super-secret rendering of the tower that's rising on that site. Er, wow. So that's what Studio Carlos Zapata seems to have in store for that edge of the East Village. Once Cooper Union's old Hewitt Building comes down across the street and Thomas Mayne's new Psychedelic Pleasure Palace goes up in its place, this stretch will be a veritable wall of bright shiny glass—a perfect match for the Avalon'd stretch of the Bowery several blocks south.
[The Cooper Square Hotel plans an outdoor bar for this area along 5th Street]
The developers of the hotel, the Peckmoss Group, originally told the neighbors that this area at the corner of 5th and The Bowery would be a lush garden spot. But it seems the plants might get in the way of the hotel's party plans. The latest word is that the area will get just a wee bit of greenery. But mainly it will be an outdoor lounge—cocktails and ambient music and all. There will be another outdoor bar just above on the second floor. And yet a third bar in the basement. All right outside the neighbors' windows.
One consolation: with Studio Carlos Zapata in charge of the design all these spaces should be very nice to look at. We reported on another Zapata-designed (but still unbuilt) project a while back. It might give an indication of what's going up here. Below is what they proposed for a 26-story condo on 23rd Street just west of Fifth Avenue.
[Studio Carlos Zapata's unbuilt plan for a condo development by Horizen Global]
While we're at it let's take a look at some of the interiors that the Zapata gang has done around the world. One thing is for sure. These guys really do know how to play with space.
[A Zapata design for a residence in Golden Beach, Florida]
[Two views of a house in Quito, Ecuador]
· Thumbs Up: Cooper Square Hotel Revealed! [Curbed]
· Cooper Union Pleasure Palace Update: No LIC! [Curbed]
· By All That is Holy in SoFi [Curbed]
Hey, my penis has the same bend to it...
Hey! Mine does too! This building has been officially dubbed "The Cock Building".
Hey yeah #1, I was just going to say it looks like my ex-boyfriends dick- and it was more interesting than this monstrosity.
My penis is not that big -but still this is an - AWESOME BUILDING!!!!
Oy Vey!! What the hell is happening to architecture in this city? These new glass & steel structures are horrible (but inexpensive to build).
Is there a shortage of limestone and granite?
It's nice & all, but it's severely out of scale with the rest of the buildings on that same block! Unfortunately people don't really care until it's *their* window view suddenly getting blocked by the next "big" thing. (there are actually people living in the adjacent buildings)
This all kind of reminds me of that Family Guy episode where Peter gets penis envy..
Cooper Square's Orthanc will go quite nicely with Astor Place's Bara'dur.
God, it looks just their 23rd Street Building..
Looks F-ing beautiful to me! why are so many people adverse to innovation? bring it on, zapata!
I almost bought a place on 5th street inbetween Bowery and 2nd avenue. It's a sweet little block, and every time I pass by I wonder if I should have bought it .... now that I know there will a towering party scene right at the end of the block, am I glad I'm in a space where nothing that new can be built that close.
yo yo dawgies, word. like. dis heah muthafuckin glass cock rocks its dawgie, straight up. point blank i BANG on the muthafuckin' haters out theah. my boy ZAP be all up in you ass wit his muthafickin thick, black buildin, dawg. BOO-YAH!!!! step! ain't no half-steppin!!!
das roiight!! anytang goin up finna look lie a homies dong, but yallz thangs aint nuttin like da ZAP. ZAPs trill, not no fake ass bustah
305-MIA
it looks as dumb as the Freedom Tower. I can't wait to get shit faced at Mc Sorely's and go throw up in the looby of this piece of shit.
I live in the building directly next door (the light colored building to the right of the rendering, #207 5th). Supposedly the developers have offered to replace all of our building's windows with new, sound-proofed versions, but as a neighbor pointed out - why should we be forced to keep our windows shut during the nice weather to NOT hear the hotel's noise?
the name is CARLOS ZAPATA STUDIO
no studio carlos zapata
Hey John (#15), you guys could probably use those windows during the construction phase! (my sister lives in your building, I know all about the noise..)
Well I live close by. One person recently described it as looking like a stand-up air fresherner. I say it looks like an ugly shark fin. appropriate..........I think these people are exploiting the space as much as possible and have little regard for neighbors or impact.
Where the heck is Tom Wolfe when you need him?
www.forgotten-ny.com
The one on 23rd street doesn't look so bad but it seems only slightly out of place. But the Cooper Union one is really damn ugly and looks completely out of place. I wonder if these "modern" designs will become as regrettable as the ugly 1970s architecture.
Marlon (#17) that's a great point, and I'm not sure why it hasn't been suggested earlier. I'll probably be thinking about it again at 7AM tomorrow.
Way out of place. And just a little too phallic to avoid the "penis building" monicker. Hideous, hideous, and oh, just *perfect* for the East Village. Come on. Ridiculous.
When the 2 new Cooper Union buildings go up (the new Mayne building across the street and the one set to replace the 1950s building with the Starbucks on the north side of Astor Place) and the new development goes up on the parking lot across the Bowery this one won't seem that big.
Also: No doubt something new will grow across Cooper Square where the Village Voice offices are.
Another site a block south is getting a new building.
In 3 years it'll all be different.
this Zapata designed building is great IMHO! Any tall building can be compared to a penis....come on people.
With the new Sanaa designed New Museum down the way, and the Morphosis/Mayne building just north, these three new buildings will demonstrate how thoughtfully designed new buildings from visionary architects can co-exist with their surroundings to create exciting ( and varied ) architectural statements while also providing useful and functional spaces -- whether for museum goers, engineering students or visitors to the new hotel.
These new buildings will certainly make their mark in different ways, but they will certainly continue to guide the transformation of the Bowery which until recently nobody gave a shit about....
and you're right #23, with the other buildings in the vicinity coming online soon, this one won't seem out of place at all.
You are all correct, this building looks like a sailboat after a hurricane. Anyway i love all these boutique hoteliers who say their project will be a innovative and major shift in the perception of a boutique hotel. I will tell you right now, they are all way off target. Take for instance Gramercy Park, Schragers new place. I walked in there the other day in a suite and tie mid day on a weekday and was quickly approached by 3 employees (doormen, security, bellman i suppose) to err welcome me, more like find out what the hell i was doing walking into their lobby. So unwelcoming.
I can't believe this is going to be in my neighborhood. Manhattan: city of hotels.
Let's complain about noise? please, it's going to block the sound coming off of Bowery (which is terrible 24 hours a day...) or all the mugs clanking together just behind at McSorley's ale house. I live on the block and am very excited about the project which is already 10 stories built (and Morphosis' new design next door also in demo as we speak). Plus now my friends have no excuses that they can't find a decent hotel close-by, no more couch crashers!
that building is disgusting
I look forward to the day when we run out of cheap oil and can no longer afford to heat glass buildings.
welcome to the eighties!!! i'll be wearing my white suit.
clearly a master of form. Even at street level this building brings a uniquiness that is very difficult to achieve. beautiful.
#5, I don't think there is any shortage of granite and limestone. But neither was there when Lever House was built on Park Avenue either; what? steel and glass next to the University Club, across from St. Bart's! Oy (indeed). Historic preservation is a wonderful thing, but it doesn't mean freezing all construction that isn't a pastiche of "the good ol' days" and never building anything new. And admit it, a lot of comments here reek of N.I.M.B.Y. As to what happens when we run out of cheap oil, well we have, and I don't think any new buildings are being built with coal-fired boilers or fireplaces in every room.
Do I like the building? It's not really my cup of tea: the curves and bends and other gymnastics seem capricious to me; but it does have a certain exhuberance that's hard not to appreciate. Of more concern is the lack of any hint of "sustainability" or "green design." Contrary to what was implied by #5, this is not a cheap building; the curtain wall system is coming from China in order to hold down some cost. I'd prefer New England granite just because it's "greener" (less than 500-miles away) than curtain wall that's traveled 9,000-miles.
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