535W43 Apartments (New York City, New York)

 apartments, 2016_construction

155-foot, 14-story modernist residential building completed in 2016. Designed by CetraRuddy Architects, it consists of two separate buildings with a landscaped courtyard by HMWhite in between. The north building on 44th Street is set farther to the west than the 43rd Street building, but both have similar designs and materials. Spanning the courtyard is a 2-story-high, orange-colored arched arcade.

They are clad in motley variegated brown brick with large casement windows in grey-brown metal framing. The south building's facade has nine bays, two of which are double-wide (the easternmost and 3rd-from-the-east), and they are grouped into 2-floor units. Within each unit, fluted metal spandrels separate the two floors instead of the brick that divides each unit. The ground floor has plate-glass windows with bronze planters at the sidewalk level, and there are similarly-colored stone bases to the brick piers between bays. The 3rd & 4th bay from the west are combined into the main entrance, with a revolving door flanked by traditional glass doors, covered by a suspended bronze canopy. The 2nd floor above the doorway has a band of recessed windows with a bronze band across the top, from which the canopy is suspended. A secondary entrance is located in the 2nd bay from the east, with glass double-doors. The two double bays are split by vertical, paneled bronze pilasters. The lower roof line is at the 10th floor, where there is a shallow bronze cornice. Extending past this lower roof line are the two western bays, the middle bay, and the east half of one of the double bays joined with the easternmost single bay into an offset double bay. Each of these changes cladding at the 10th floor to paneled bronze pilasters (like those below) framing similar window arrangements, with the wide end bays not divided by any brick piers. The middle bay extends to the 11th floor, the wider west end reaches the 12th floor, and the east end reaches the 13th floor before setting back to a flat upper roof line.

The north facade of the north building has 13 bays, generally narrower than those on the south building. The base at the sidewalk level is black granite, without the bronze planters at each bay seen on the south building. There are entrances with glass double-doors in the 3rd & 5th bays from the east. Like the south building, there is a lower roof line at the 10th floor, and three sections of bronze-framed bays (the outer ones wider) that extend up higher before setting back to the upper roof line. The west section is the widest, and is sub-divided into two uneven parts by an additional bronze pilaster.

The courtyard façades are light-colored and have a narrow indented pier that adds sculptural interest as do the dark metal spandrels. The buildings contain 280 apartment units.