7 Bryant Park

Installation of curtain wall is almost complete at Pei Cobb Freed's 7 Bryant Park, a 450-foot-tall, 30-story office building on the fringes of Bryant Park in Midtown Manhattan. The tower joins other recent additions to the area, like COOKFOX's angular One Bryant Park. Overall, the tower's form is a simple rectangular extrusion with requisite zoning setback on the tenth floor and a conical subtraction at the northeast corner.  This rather odd massing gestures faces the park and provides the building's signature element. The design of the curtain wall is a basic glass and linen finish stainless steel spandrel panel that gives the building a heavily striped appearance, bucking the recent trend of suppressing the solid spandrels in other new office buildings throughout the city. When completed later this year, the tower will bring 471,000 rentable square feet to the area, including 6,200 square feet of ground floor retail.

 

Northeast corner from Bryant Park.

Looking west from Bryant Park with One Bryant Park (far right) and 7 Bryant Park (far left).

Frozen fountain in Bryant Park.

Northeast corner from Sixth Avenue.

Detail of canopy and conical incision at the northeast corner.

North façade from West 40th Street.

Northwest corner from West 40th Street.

East façade from Sixth Avenue.

Southeast corner from Sixth Avenue.

Architects: Pei Cobb Freed & Partners Architects LLP; Structural Engineer: Thornton Tomasetti; MEP Engineer: Jaros Baum & Bolles; Developer: Hines with Pacolet Milliken Enterprises; Program: Office, Retail; Location: Midtown, New York, NY; Completion:2015.