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Kips Bay Towers

Kips Bay Plaza
Good
  • Brutalist
  • Identity of Building/Site
  • History of Building/Site

Kips Bay Towers

Site overview

This ten-acre site was originally part of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill’s master plan for New York University–Bellevue Medical Complex. Developer William Zeckendorf bought the still-empty property in 1957 and hired Pei to design apartments for the open market. Pei consolidated 1,136 units into two 410-foot-long, 21-story offset slabs, perpendicular to the river and separated by a block-wide open green space. His entirely consistent, crisply detailed concrete-frame structures create urban-scale grandeur. Inside, they allow for generous layouts, although halls are long and apartments deep. The sculpture Pei wanted as a park centerpiece proved too costly, so the plaza has only dwarf trees, unlike at the elegant ensemble he designed for New York University, University Village (1966), where a Picasso is installed in the garden.

How to Visit

Private residential building

Location

333-343 East 30th Street
New York, NY, 10016

Country

US

Case Study House No. 21

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Designer(s)

I.M. Pei

Architect

Nationality

American, Chinese

James Ingo Freed

Other designers

I.M Pei, James Indigo Freed

Related News

Revisiting Urban Renewal

Advocacy, Annual Theme, Urban Renewal, Revisiting Urban Renewal

December 07, 2022

Related chapter

New York/Tri State

Commission

1957

Completion

1962

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