At the "luxury lifestyle exhibition" Extravaganza, which took place at the end of October at the Manege, as one of the exhibits, a new project by Rem Koolhaas and his OMA bureau was demonstrated - the skyscraper N 22 to 23rd Street in New York. Of course, this construction, which has not yet begun, is one of the most exclusive residential buildings in the world: there are only 18 apartments on its 24 floors, and Koolhaas himself does not often undertake large commercial, "real estate" projects. As a rule, apartments in such houses are sold out even before the official publication of their first renders.
It is easy to judge this: over the past ten years, a whole series of residential complexes of various sizes appeared in Manhattan from the architects of the "top ten" - Jean Nouvel, Santiago Calatrava, Richard Mayer, Bernard Chumi, Herzog & de Meuron bureau - and they all had a huge success. With a purely commercial orientation of these objects, the authors of their projects remained true to themselves and created quite serious, original works, interesting not only as real estate objects. Therefore, even New York architecture critics, inclined to denounce developers for their lack of any social responsibility and an endless desire for enrichment, welcomed such a construction boom, because it significantly revitalized the city's appearance.
Considering all this, it was surprising to see the architect of this project, Jason Long, personally presenting the 22nd 23rd Street tower to the public in Moscow, and also to learn that 7 out of 18 apartments there have not yet been sold out. A 60-storey skyscraper "1 Madison Park" by the same developer - Slazer Enterprises has already been built next to the future building, and a significant part of the apartments there have been purchased by buyers from Eastern Europe, including Russians. By analogy, one would expect a similar "alignment of forces" in "22nd 23rd Street". But such close attention of New York developers, and, what is most surprising, of architects to the Russian "audience", which is expressed in the search for buyers among the visitors of the Moscow exhibition, is striking. On the other hand, the United States and most European countries, where most of the owners of apartments in the "iconic" buildings originated, are now affected by the financial downturn to the point where you can forget about buying ultra-expensive real estate.
This explains the special presentation of the 22nd to 23rd Street project in Moscow, but not the pronounced "architectural" key of this presentation. Along with this tower, various residential complexes were presented at the exhibition, mainly in the UAE, but with the only exception (more on that later), all of them were standard real estate objects, without a hint of architectural value.
Of course, the interest of the OMA bureau in the successful implementation of its project - and their desire to ensure this implementation, at least by playing the card of Rem Koolhaas's "star" status, is understandable. However, this situation has one unusual, but much explaining aspect. In December 2007, when OMA first announced the start of work on this Slazer Enterprises facility, the media reported the bureau's involvement not only as an architect, but also as a co-investor, and even quoted a statement from OMA's managing partner, Victor van der Heiss (Victor van der Chijs): “This is the first time for us that we participate (in a project) on such a broad financial basis. We not only risk our heads, but we also get our share of the profits, which usually went only to developers. " If these agreements remain in effect, then it becomes clearer why “22nd to 23rd Street” was presented in Moscow by an architect and not a developer - as was the case with the second “nominal” project on Extravaganza, Daniel Libeskind's Reflections residential complex in Singapore …
In any case, one cannot fail to notice an interesting trend: in the changed economic conditions, ambitious architectural projects need solid financial support, and it can be provided, along with Arabs, Indians, Chinese, Russians. It is impossible not to draw a parallel with the first arrival of many Western "stars" in Russia in the hope that they will be able to carry out their large-scale projects here. Now, having generally failed on this front, they are again turning to Russian investors of various levels - for help in implementing their plans outside the Russian Federation. The level of responsibility they have entrusted to the domestic financial elite is already much higher: now it turns out that the fate of that “iconic”, “stellar”, super-expensive architecture that has dominated the world over the past 15 years lies in their hands.
