A legend goes Downtown.

Johnson discusses his Spring St. project

Real Estate Weekly staff writer Parke Chapman recently sat down with architect Philip Johnson and his partner, Alan Ritchie, in their Manhattan office to discuss their latest downtown project. Johnson, now in his nineties, is still pushing the envelope with starkly original work. The project -- a 26-story residential building housing 50 condominium apartments -- will be constructed at Spring and Washington Street in SoHo. The building fuses sculptural. elements that are best described as Cubist. Instead of a conventional rectangular shape rising from a foundation, the building is a collage-like assembly with plenty of roving lines. The facades will have multiple facets, each different in shape and clad with variously colored brick. And most importantly for Johnson, the building will feature double-hung windows.

It is a bold project that will surely become a downtown landmark, all the more important since Philip Johnson is the designer. The Spring Street Development Company, led by Gerry Vendome, will develop the project. Place Vendome Realty is the project manager.

REW: This is an amazing project, Mr. Johnson.

Philip Johnson: Why not? It's a triumph of the double hung. The double hung windows win after all.

REW: Tell us about the location of this project.

PJ: I really like Spring Street. This is a very nice street. What they want is for me to make this area blossom. We'll do the best we can.

REW: Will this project define the neighborhood?

PJ: It will re-define the neighborhood.

REW: The building does speak for itself, doesn't it?

PJ: Sure it does.

REW: How did you pick out the colors of the bricks?

PJ: Well, those are perfectly picked out after long talks with the brick people. It looks like New York. A whole city is what it expresses. And that's what we want.

REW: Do you make it down to the site often?

PJ: Of course. The main thing is the street that gives you the clue to everything. You still get this intimate feeling in the neighborhood. We're not doing anything but building on to this scene. Like a good neighbor.

REW: Can you tell us anything about your approach?

PJ: We're using elements here with a sense of humor and a different approach. Why not? I mean, we're alive today and we can laugh at things that we took terribly seriously fifty years ago. We can laugh at modern architecture, too. You can't solve anything with functionalism.

REW: What is architecture to you?

PJ: Architecture is beauty.

REW: Is there anything you'd like to add, Mr. Johnson?

PJ: I'm writing a little plaque for each room in the building. It will be welded to the building's structure. It'll be fancied up by our house calligrapher. It will be done in bronze. By the way, you can use my expression on the double-hung windows in your story. How about the revenge of the double-hung? Or maybe the return of the double-hung? God knows there used to be a lot of double-hung windows in this city. Modern architects don't like them at all. When you stop to think about it, the double hung are the only ones that are by their very nature green. And green, to say the least, is chic.

REW: Alan, tell us how a sculpture can in fact be "habitable"?

Alan Ritchie: By shaping the form, you actually get more interesting vistas which is much more interesting than a rectangular form. Some of these shapes are angled out and looking in several different directions. You cannot do that in a rectangular shape.

REW: It's been said that each floor is different.

AR: Each floor does have it's own individuality.

REW: Tell us about the penthouse.

AR: It's not large. The floor plates reduce down to become a sculptural element as you go further up. Penthouse is really a duplex apartment on the 25th and 26th floor. It's a grand space.

REW: Have you ever designed a building like this before?

AR: I've been with Mr. Johnson for many years. And this office has always had that reputation for finding new directions and new ideas. Something like this? No. But we are sensitive to geometric forms in our designs. Each new client we have, we try to offer something more exciting. Our reputation hinges on that.

REW: This is a very adventurous design.

AR: Well, budget is very important to residential real estate. And so many developers are unwilling to spend so much on these projects. Here we are fortunate because we have a client willing to spend what is needed. It's important to push the limits. Sure, this is a challenge because it is a residential building in a nonresidential zone.

REW: What is the lot size?

AR: Ninety-seven-by-eighty feet wide. It's not a large footprint to begin with. There will likely only be two apartments per floor.

REW: There appears to be a lot of demand for more residential housing in the Hudson Square area. Will your building be a catalyst for new housing?

AR: I would hope so. There are some other residential developments in the works in this area. A lot of the other streets in this area have a lot of potential for this sort of thing. TriBeCa has really been developing in terms of renovating existing buildings, really just doing dentistry. But here, particularly closer to the river, there are some sites that are vacant that could lend themselves to elegant architecture and new construction.

REW: Let's discuss the Cubist elements of the building.

AR: Cubism is about the wonderful play of light and changing of shapes within the object itself. We're trying to play with sculptural forms here as well.