New York: A brand new city in our backyard

One thing about New York which always amazes us is how it is constantly changing. Look away for what seems like an instant, and the view has completely changed.

While Michael and I have been away for just a few years, an entirely new city has grown up in the backyard of the apartment in Chelsea which we are lucky to borrow from our good friends in NYC. 

The area is called Hudson Yards - the largest private real estate development in US history, spanning seven blocks from 30th to 34th street between 10th and 12th avenue.

From our windows we watch the rising spires, and as an architect, I have been doing a lot of watching.

When we last visited New York in 2016 the area was just a regiment of cranes. The first tower - 10 Hudson yards - was months away from opening and the rest of the building sites were just marked by the regiments of cranes

Now it looks like this - 10 Hudson Yards is almost hidden behind other highrises forming a tiara of towering glass at the northern end of the High Line park

 

One of the buildings belongs to a Danish architect we know rather well - or at least know of. 

In 2003 Michael and I bought an apartment in a building designed by a young architect. This was his first house and almost nobody had heard of him, We certainly hadn't. We just liked the very first drawings when we saw them in a publication - and within hours of them being published, we signed the deal

The name of that architect was Bjarke Ingels.

Now he is one of the most famous architects in the world, and his 66-story tower called The Spiral is rising right outside our window - its cascading stepped terraces already visible, eventually to be planted with trees spiraling green all the way to the top.

We were actually the very first people in the world to buy an Ingels-designed apartment, and we had absolutely no idea what we were doing. There are worse things to be accidentally right about.

The rest of Hudson Yards is worth a look too. The Shed, designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, sits on enormous wheels and can actually move along a short track, expanding or shrinking its own volume as needed

According to the architect, the massive shell can be moved by a motor with the horsepower of an ordinary Toyota Prius. Standing below it, this seems completely impossible, which is probably the point.

Then there is the Vessel - a copper-colored climbing frame for grown-ups, designed by Thomas Heatherwick at a cost of fifty million dollars. 

It looks like wickerwork made of Escher staircases and when you stand below it you absolutely want to climb it. Unfortunately it is currently closed, after several people jumped from it. The architect is working on how to make it safer, which seems like a conversation that perhaps should have happened earlier.

Up in the clouds on the massive tower 10 Hudson yards (So massive - I couldn't fit it into one frame!), is the observation deck called The Edge. It has a glass floor where you can stand and look straight down into the void below your feet. We have not done this. The line is long and our nerves are finite.

But mostly we just stand at our window and watch The Spiral going up, floor by floor.

We had no idea who Bjarke Ingels was. Now we can see his ambition from our window.

New York will do that to you.