The Westin New York at Times Square (New York City, New York)

 hotel, skyscraper, 2002_construction

532-foot, 45-story postmodern hotel completed in 2002. Designed by Arquitectonica, it has two main sections: the taller north tower, clad in multicolored glass curtain walls, and the lower, 14-story south section clad in painted pre-cast concrete panels. The north and south sections of the base also have differing designs and overlap with the upper portions. The south half of the base is clad in tan brick. On its west facade on the avenue, it has a vertical band of dark-grey metal vents at the left; to the right the ground floor has a storefront, a recessed subway entrance faced in white tiles, and a storefront with a chamfered corner. The 2nd floor has a large window above the south storefront, with the rest of the 2nd floor faced in alternating bands of white and black glazed brick, although most of the north end is covered by a long sign board. A large, lighted sign is attached to the chamfered corner at the 2nd floor. The chamfer ends above the 2nd floor, with a large, 2-story, projecting video board wrapping around the corner of the facade. To the north, between the video board and the vents, are two window bays in the form of angled, projecting metal-and-glass columns. The south facade of the south base is a dizzying array of colorful surfaces, with storefronts along the ground level, windows at the 2nd floor, and a large sign board and text crawl covering the upper floors; this section is basically an extension of the E-Walk complex that adjoins the hotel on 42nd Street. There is a setback above this section of base to the lower, south tower, which extends a short way onto the north section of base. The three facades of the lower tower are a mishmash of angled facets, randomly bending in and out, with each facet painted either brown, yellow, red, or orange. A array of single-windows, spaced alternately at every other floor, fills each facade, 18 bays across on the south facade, and 16 on the west and east sides.

The north half of the base, rising five floors and containing the main hotel entrance, is more subdued. On the avenue it is clad in grey pre-cast panels, four bays wide. The southern three bays have a 4-story squared section of translucent pale-green glass panels with a band of clear panes at the 2nd floor. The entire square is subdivided into smaller square and rectangles by horizontal and vertical steel mullions; an angled signboard is attached to the 5th floor. The glass curtain wall of the tower extends down through the base to the street on the north facade, with a dark-grey metal marquee extending most of the length of the ground floor, ending before the loading dock at the east end.

A shallow arc, extending the full height of the tower, splits the northern and southern façades in two. Silver-blue glass predominates on the western half, pink-orange on the east. The skin is accented with stripes of contrasting colors, vertical on the west side of the arc, and horizontal on the east. The west facade is fully clad in the silver-blue iteration, complete with vertical stripes of varied lengths, and intersections partially with the cube-like form of the lower south section. The east facade, likewise, continues the pink-orange coloring with horizontal lines.

The tower's lop-sided crown is one of the larkiest on the skyline. Instead of one more Art Deco retread, it forgoes symmetry for syncopation. Both sides slope inward, with the blue glass west side rising higher than the east, and extending to a point along a continuation of where the arc would each if it extended past the eastern roof line. At regular intervals, lights recessed within the vertical arc perform a blast-off number, shooting up the façade of the building and far into the night sky.

The hotel contains 873 guest rooms. Besides the lobby with a large atrium, the ground floor is occupied by the Foundry Kitchen & Bar, Europan Cafe, Auntie Annie's Pretzels, Villa Pizzeria, Crumbs Bake Shop, and Five Guys Burgers.

www.marriott.com/hotels/travel/nycsw-the-westin-new-yor...
lorea.smugmug.com/Misc-File-Pulls-/Delivered/Westin-/