Obliqued Columns
2017 | New York, NY
Tower has a unique stance in architecture—a symbol, an icon, and a totem. Because of these meanings, one may argue that towers are out of context because they form context themselves. The project examines and signifies towers’ idiosyncratic role in the city of New York.
A product of the elevational stacking of Greek Ionic column profiles, the stacking follows the order of A-B-A-C from the bottom to the top. Next, a continuous profile shapes and unifies the overall silhouette to achieve the oblique quality.
The drawing of the worm’s-eye isometric highlights and emphasizes the tower as an object with unrealistic angles. Then, the tower, as an object, is superimposed onto the site. The result is awkward yet idiosyncratic. Like a defamiliarized Adolf Loos’s Chicago Tribune Tower, the obliqued column strips the columns' innate function. It no longer holds anything up; instead, it absorbs capital in.
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Design Critic: Margaret Griffin