One Museum Mile Condominium

 condominium, 2012_construction, postmodern (architecture)

210-foot, 19-story Postmodern residential building completed in 2012 for Brickman Real Estate. Designed by Robert A.M. Stern Architects with interiors by Andre Kikoski, the north end of the building houses The Africa Center. The facades are clad in white cast-stone and glass. The low-rise north end is distinguished by the "dancing mullions" of the trapezoidal windows of the museum, and that handsome angularity is also carried thematically onto the masonry façades, but not the windows of the rest of the building. At the lower floors at the north end of the main west facade, as well as along the north facade of the main building section and the west facade of the far-north section, these angular windows (in alternating trapezoidal shapes) are decorated with brightly-colored abstract designs. The main entrance to the museum is at the north end of the main building section facing Fifth Avenue. It has a double-height opening with glass double-doors, and is set in a bronze molding that angled out halfway up, and then angles back in at the upper half, with a bronze canopy above the doors. The north end of this building section rises 7 floors for three bays; at the 5th-7th floors a wedge-shaped metal screen joins to the taller main condominium section that extends the full 19 floors. Directly to the south of the museum entrance the window openings drop down to only the first three floors, then the first two floors at the next two bays, and only the lowest level at the next bay. There is a windowless gap between here and the residential entrance at the south end of the west facade. This entrance also opens into a double-height lobby, and has sliding glass doors below a bronze canopy. The south end has a corner of glass curtain wall wrapping around to the south facade on the ground floor. At the south end of the west facade, the 4th floors has three bays of recessed trapezoidal openings, with glass railings. The upper floors are organized into five bays of tripartite windows, with metal vents incorporated into the lower middle panes. There is a setback above the 10th floor, and the top floors still continue as five bays of tripartite windows.

At the south facade on 109th Street the ground floor has a section of polished light-brown granite next to the small glass curtain wall section at the corner, framed at the other side by a narrow window. For the rest of the south facade, the cast-stone base with its angular pattern extends down to the low granite water table at the sidewalk level. The middle has a metal service door below a wide metal screen in an angular geometric pattern. The east end has two sets of service doors, each next to a loading dock with a roll-down metal gate; the western loading dock is taller, and the eastern one is topped by a tall metal screen with the same geometric pattern as the wide, short one at the middle of the facade. The top floor of the base, the 4th floor, has a band of alternating trapezoidal window bays.

At the upper floors the four western bays continue up to a setback above the 10th floor, with the rest of the base having a shallow setback to the upper floors. The middle four bays continue up to the roof line, as do the eastern four bays that are farther set back. There is a rooftop deck and pool.

Back on the west facade facing the avenue, the north end has a recessed section above the lower floors that is one bay wide. The north-facing facade of the main building section spans 12 bays, with various shallow setbacks at the lower floors. The building forms an L-shape, with the north wing extending to connect to the low-rise north section. This wing is three bays wide, with a shallow setback above the 10th floor. The far north section is only three floors tall (with window openings only at the ground floor), but has an 8-story "tower" at the north end that is connected to the main building by a grid-like lattice of open trapezoidal shapes with thin metal screens, across the 6th-8th floors. The north facade on 110th Street is completely windowless, but continues the angular, alternating trapezoidal pattern in the stone. The ground floor has three sets of metal service doors, and the 3rd floor has a wide metal screen in the same pattern as those on the south facade. A 3-bay section of open bays begins in the middle, running from the 4th-8th floors, matching those on the west facade. The east end of the north facade ends at the 5th floor, while the west end continues up to the 8th, framing the open bays in the middle. Behind the low-rise section, the north facade of the main building is three bays wide, and the main east facade is seven bays wide, with the set-back south wing spanning three bays. All of the trapezoidal bays at the lower floors are formed by thin, angled "dancing mullions" between the windows, meant to evoke "the woven shapes of baskets and so forth.

The building contains 114 condominium units. The residential lobby features a 44-foot alabaster-inspired art glass wall by Andre Kikoski and Weil Studio.

www.ramsa.com/projects/project/one-museum-mile