Nine new stories of Google offices sit on top of the old St. John’s Terminal.
Photo: Provided by Google
Google is so ingrained in our brains, languages, and minute-to-minute lives that it can be hard to remember just how big of a presence it is in the physical world. The company’s irresistible appetite for Westside real estate Intrepid-The size dose was transformative. In 2008, we took over the huge old Port Authority building at 111 Eighth Avenue. Two years ago, the company opened another complex on Pier 57 with a public rooftop park. Now, it’s added more than a million square feet atop St. John’s Terminal, a four-block industrial behemoth that runs along its western edge. From Spring Street to West Houston Street in Hudson Square. What I can say about that is: Huh! I say that in both senses. Surprise at the measurable scale of the undertaking and relief at the rich and unique urbanism it has created.
There was no guarantee that Google’s huge new complex, designed by CookFox, interiors by Gensler, and landscaping by Future Green, would be as good as it was. Just because software companies built the digital world doesn’t necessarily mean they know what to do with artisanal chunks of industrial infrastructure. From the 1930s through his ’50s, St. John’s Terminal served as the downtown terminus of the High Line. Today it’s a picturesque tool to facilitate Instagram posts, but it was created to help get food to Manhattanites without killing them along the way. Freight trains moved slowly and had a habit of running over people, even though they were led by urban cowboys on horseback. When the terminal opened, newspapers celebrated the end of Death Avenue. It’s good to see the fusion of technology and architecture breathe new life into something. (The southern portion of the trestle between the terminal and Gansevoort Street was demolished in the 1960s.)
Before the redevelopment of St. John’s Terminal became part of the corporate strategy, it had a civic dimension. The goal was to find the money needed to shore up Pier 40 before Hudson River Park collapsed. Although building a revenue-generating tower on the pier itself proved politically impossible, in 2016 the City Council decided to build an aerial bridge across West Street in exchange for a quick $100 million. passed a bill allowing the transfer of rights. CookFox came up with a proposal for how to utilize all that square footage, which made the late critic Michael Sorkin even more furious than usual. “The design is a particularly ripe variation on the ‘form follows finance’ ethos that is at the heart of New York City planning,” he wrote. architect’s newspaper, “And it’s full of bluffs (big box stores, tons of parking, sky-high towers, and truly grotesque ‘for now’ alternative plans).” ” Sorkin countered that plan with a speculative proposal of his own. It cleaned up what he saw as architectural disarray and reconnected the neighborhood to the river. However, the final result was three 400-foot residential towers along West Street. Cities seemed to have a choice between being bad or terrible.
Instead, what Oxford Properties got when it bought the site, leased it, and ultimately sold it to Google was far better than anyone following the Byzantine negotiations could have expected. It was something. The deal preserved much of the original terminal, but less because of aesthetic intentions and more because all the concrete was fine with. Slabs and columns large enough to support a train viaduct and cargo-laden wagons will carry his new nine-story building on top of it. Rather than hide its rough arms, the architects surgically exposed them, jackhammering a 3-foot-thick floor slab to make room for a staircase and exposing the original columns and beams. The huge old bones are most visible at the north end of the building. This is where the terminal once jumped over Houston Street, leaving an unpleasant underpass below. The architects cut away that section to expose the cross section. Today, the Google logo runs across what was once a rail bed, surrounded by a pair of raised platforms where goods once rolled off vehicles. Behind it is a glass wall, so it looks like the facade is gone. Gone are the trains, tracks, and platforms, but concerns about efficiently delivering food still linger in the demand for adequate freight elevators that underpinned CookFox’s design. Only now, instead of carrying side portions of beef, they’re serving an endless supply of adorable mini croissants.
There may be a hint of ruin fetish in this approach. It’s as if the bomb had shattered everything more fragile than the thick chunks of concrete preserved in the diorama of the damage. But I see this as a complex vortex of data stored in a conceptual cloud (a universe we all live in but that has not existed in recent memory), even in a city’s physical I would like to see it as a recognition of its place in history. When you reconfigure a building that was once hailed as a technological advance but quickly became obsolete, you’re effectively recognizing that one day people will say, “Remember Google?” .
The cut-off bridge that once crossed Houston Street now bears the Google logo.
Photo: Provided by Google
In the Port Authority building, you can’t really tell that it’s the Futurist’s Den, except for the sign above the door. At St. John’s University, the past is just a podium. CookFox placed a long prism of gray lattice over a tan brick terminal with a slight crease in the center to alleviate the sense of horizontal infinity. You can actually fit a motorcycle race course in there. But the new structure is tall, set back, well-proportioned and unassuming, so it blends seamlessly into the Westside streetscape. I suspect most passersby would think the upper floors have been there for decades, too, because the construction equipment and fences are gone. In the warmer months, the impression is even more pronounced when a wealth of vegetation sprouts on every terrace, as if nature were regenerating the old masonry.
The interweaving of hard and living, an essential aspect of modern architecture since at least the founding of the Ford Foundation in 1967, is becoming a fad, most recently embodied by the High Line, and often accompanied by claims of environmental virtue. Bjarke Ingels Group’s Spiral near Hudson Yards applies this principle to a high-rise building. Here, it’s even more convincing thanks to the abundance of cultivated terraces, the emphasis on native plants, and the way outdoor workspaces are interwoven with gardens. Google says “ Manahatta: Natural History of New York City, supervise the planting. Cook Fox installed tall glass railings in strategic locations to protect against gusts of wind from the Hudson River. In theory, employees could spend their days outdoors without ever leaving the building.
In the early 2000s, Google famously designed its offices so that employees could postpone going home at any time. These days, we have the tougher task of persuading them to join us. Its culture is based on small, close-knit teams, where members can choose how to organize and change their lawns according to their tasks. Presence is half the battle. In that respect, the company’s interests are aligned with the city’s. Manhattan can no longer rely on appeals to corporate executives and CEOs who have the power to have their favorite restaurants headquartered wherever they are. With so many workers on the move, New York must become the metropolis of choice for in-demand workers. One way to attract them is to have an attractive workplace, with river views, fresh air, lush greenery, and a fun and comfortable design (in addition to adorable mini croissants). Perhaps few will change their careers by looking at the polychrome Guastavino entrance to his tile-covered domed auditorium, which Gensler tucked like a rubber ball under his fourth-floor ceiling. . But you can’t help but smile when you see it.
The entrance to the auditorium is covered in multicolored Guastavino tiles.
Photo: Provided by Google
The Penthouse Cafe is designed as a popular shared workspace.
Photo: Provided by Google
Memories of the old railway line, now vertical rather than elevated, cover the new elevator and stair core.
Photo: Provided by Google
Google has distanced itself from the ploy to disguise its offices as college dorms. Rather than providing programmers with foosball tables and ball pits, Gensler offers a ring road, unexpected plazas, and rooms suitable for every way of working, from meeting at a conference table to working hunched over. We designed an indoor city. This fluid approach derives from his 1960s Bülowlandschaft (office landscape) concept, where employees are pushed out of separate cells and come together in collaboration on an open floor. That idea eventually evolved into a bullpen, congealed into an array of cubicles, or degenerated into a sweatshop setup of workstations with long runs of catwalk-like tables. But now Gensler has paid attention to every detail to further enhance the common practices of comfort, teamwork and privacy, and a mix of seriousness and informality. If I need to go out and do some writing, I’ll probably opt for the tranquil penthouse floor cafe, with its watery panoramas and botanical print walls. But there are many other style retreats to choose from.
Natural plantings soften the hard parts of the architecture. Photo: Provided by Google.
Natural plantings soften the hard parts of the architecture. Photo: Provided by Google.
The perks of office life are important even for those of us who don’t work there. Google tends to expand into dense cities, breathing new life into facilities built for shipping and freight rail, and keeping parts of the skyline in lucrative low-lying areas. This has brought more than 14,000 employees and a steady stream of tourists to the area each day. Without it, the region might have made a beeline for a post-industrial wasteland to an upscale urban suburb. Instead, his mile-long urban campus is a mix of residential neighborhoods, cultural corridors, bike paths, and a variety of parks and sports venues. Every time a technology penetrates, the industry raises concerns that it will distort markets, establish monocultures, and disrupt urban ecosystems. But even Google can’t overwhelm Manhattan. There’s a lot of other stuff going on.
