By Greg Goldin, Sam Lubell. Foreword by Daniel Libeskind.
New York City as it might have been: 200 years of visionary architectural plans for unbuilt subways, bridges, parks, airports, stadiums, streets, train stations and, of course, skyscrapers
Never Built New York shows us the visionary architectural ideas of the city's greatest dreamers across two centuries of New York City history. Nearly 200 proposals spanning 200 years encompass bridges, skyscrapers, master plans, parks, transit schemes, amusements, airports, plans to fill in rivers and extend Manhattan, and much, much more. Included are alternate visions for Central Park, Columbus Circle, Lincoln Center, MoMA, the UN, Grand Central Terminal, the World Trade Center site and other highlights such as: Alfred Ely Beach’s system of airtight subway cars propelled via atmospheric pressure; Frank Lloyd Wright’s last project, his Key Plan for Ellis Island, on which he would have developed his dream city; Buckminster Fuller’s design for Brooklyn’s Dodger Stadium, complete with giant geodesic dome to shield players and fans from the rain; developer William Zeckendorf’s Rooftop Airport, perched on steel columns 200 feet above street level, spanning from 24th to 71st Street, Ninth Avenue to the Hudson River; John Johansen’s Leapfrog City proposal to create an entirely new neighborhood atop the tenements of East Harlem; and Stephen Holl’s Bridge of Houses, offering options from SROs to modest studios to luxury apartments on a segment of what is now the High Line.
Fact-filled and entertaining texts, plus sketches, renderings, prints and models drawn from archives across the country tell stories of ideas that would have drastically transformed the way we inhabit and move through the city.
Sam Lubell has written seven books about architecture: Never Built New York, Midcentury Modern Architecture Guide, Never Built Los Angeles, Julius Shulman Los Angeles: The Birth of a Modern Metropolis, Paris 2000+, London 2000+ and Living West. He is a contract writer for Wired and has written for The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Magazine, New York Magazine, Architect, The Architect’s Newspaper, Architectural Record, Architectural Review, Wallpaper*, Contract and other publications. He co-curated the A+D Architecture and Design Museum, Los Angeles, exhibition Never Built Los Angeles in 2013. He lives in New York City.
Greg Goldin is co-author of Never Built Los Angeles (Metropolis Books, 2013) and was co-curator of the exhibition Never Built Los Angeles, which premiered at the A+D Architecture and Design Museum, Los Angeles, in July 2013. He was the recipient of a coveted Getty Research Institute grant for Pacific Standard Time Presents: Modern Architecture in L.A. in 2011. For more than a decade, he was the architecture critic at Los Angeles magazine. His work has appeared in The Los Angeles Times, Architectural Record, Architect’s Newspaper, Rolling Stone, Playboy and dozens of other magazines. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and daughter.
Architect Daniel Libeskind is an international figure in architecture and urban design. As Principal Design Architect for Studio Libeskind, Mr. Libeskind speaks widely on the art of architecture in universities and professional summits. The Studio has completed buildings that range from museums and concert halls to convention centers, university buildings, hotels, shopping centers and residential towers. His architecture and ideas have been the subject of many articles and exhibitions, influencing the field of architecture and the development of cities and culture. Mr. Libeskind lives in New York with his wife and business partner, Nina Libeskind.
Featured image is reproduced from Never Built New York.
PRAISE AND REVIEWS
Senior Curator, Architecture & Design, and Director, Research & Development,The Museum of Modern Art
Paola Antonelli
It’s hard to think of city that has been the object of such intense dreams and desires for architects—and yet so elusive and hard to get—as New York. The building concepts in this book are imaginative, opinionated attempts to compete for New York's attention and shape its future, knowing that a mark left on this city will be forever felt around the world.
Ware Professor of Architecture, Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation, Columbia University
Kenneth Frampton
By any standard, this is a fascinating scholarly tour de force, ultimately paralleling in its brilliant ambition the infinite spectrum of its subject matter.
Bomb Magazine
Alexandre De Looz
Never Built New York encompasses a record of renderings, images, models, and plans... offering an opportunity to reevaluate the present in terms of the possible.
Elle Decor
Compiling nearly 200 plans that came to naught, Never Built New York (Metropolis Books) imagines an alternative city of fairy-castle skyscrapers, pneumatic tubes, man-made islands, and river-spanning jetports.
Metropolis Magazine
[New York] appears as a tumultuous construction site where radical creative enclaves, quixotic engineering proposals in the name of efficiency, and proud civic-engagement movements compete for disparate visions of a city that always could (or could never) have been.
Wall Street Journal
Darryn King
...the city’s most intriguing and unrealized architectural and design projects.
Atlas Obscura
Anika Burgess
...an intoxicating look at the designs for New York that, either through bureaucracy, budget or bad luck, never came to pass...
Travel + Leisure
Erika Owen
...an impact on designers and architects for years to come.
Wallpaper
Harriet Thorpe
The book shows architects as idealistic, yet often unrealistic dreamers; the Skyscraper Bridges of Raymond Hood emerge eerily from their pencil sketches and R Buckminster Fuller’s glass dome over Manhattan, half a mile in diameter, looks positively futuristic… an inverse history of a city that never was.
The Gothamist
Raphael Pope-Sussman
A wonderful funland and/or twisted hellscape...some of the most outrageous architectural and urban planning ideas from more than 150 years of New York City history.
Archinect
Amelia Taylor-Hochberg
...projects from the last two centuries, sited all throughout the five boroughs, that range from the monumental to the mortifying...aborted reflections of their time, place and politics.
The New York Times
Sam Roberts
Imaginative… a catalog of dashed dreams.
The New York Review of Books
Martin Filler
revelatory
The Culture Trip, Editors' Top Pick 2016
Amber C. Snider
Retro and futuristic, Never Built New York is perfect for dreamers, conceptual-design lovers, and those with an inclination towards paradoxical “what ifs?” An architectural and philosophical tour-de-force.
Science Friday
Katie Hiler
a unique look at New York through various historical eras, such as the Gilded Age and the mid-20th century. And yet the concepts covered in Never Built New York don’t seem entirely unfamiliar. Indeed, they reveal a concern for the environment and a preoccupation with space that are still on the minds of New York City residents today.
Hyperallergic
Allison Meier
the impression one gets from flipping through Never Built New York is one of visionary ambition for a city that’s often remained architecturally conservative, partly due to space limitations and partly because of bureaucratic city planning.
Arch Daily
Guglielmo Mattioli
Just as compelling as the extraordinary collections of drawings is the vivid language the authors use to tell the projects’ stories. Goldin and Lubell, whose editorial tone ranges from sarcastic to critical, introduce the reader to the people behind these visionary projects, giving us glimpses of their dreams and obsessions.
Bookforum
Albert Mobilio
If you believe New York City’s ongoing infestation of sliver towers and chain stores is ruining the town you love, you may find some small cheer in knowing how much worse things could be. Never Built New York provides detailed, copiously illustrated accounts of citywide plans spanning a century - a few intriguing, others fanciful, many examples of outright vandalism - that highlight how technological change commercial exigencies, and architectural vanity could combine to distastefully ill effect.
fastcodesign.com
Meg Miller
a gorgeous tome published by Metropolis Books...Perfect for the urbanist, the New York City-dweller, or really anyone—this book is as historically fascinating as it is visually compelling.
Curbed
The best architecture and design books of 2016
New York Magazine
Justin Davidson
...leafing through Never Built New York will keep right on provoking gasps at the sheer, lunatic audacity emblazoned on every page.
Introspective Magazine
Fred A. Bernstein
Sure, New York has plenty of icons — the Empire State and Chrysler buildings, the Statue of Liberty, Grand Central Terminal. But as this book makes clear, you could create a pretty good city from the schemes that failed. Flipping through it is like taking a trip to that city.
Daily Mail
Clemence Michallon
Captivating architectural plans that didn't get built give a glimpse of what the Big Apple could have looked like
The New York Times
Will Heinrich
The unfinished fantasy of New York City, this reminds us all, is of a thousand competing ideas canceling one another out — with envy, greed, destruction and lethargy — and arriving half by accident at a complicated compromise that everyone can more or less live with, and even come to love.
STATUS: Out of stock
Temporarily out of stock pending additional inventory.
Imagine what the NYC waterfront would have been like if Samuel Friede's gargantuan 1906 Coney Island Globe had made it past the cornerstone laying stage. Measuring 300 feet in diameter and 750 feet tall, the bulbous, truss-supported 11-story tower was to be topped with huge spotlights and would have contained a theater, roller-skating rink, dance hall, circus, palm garden, weather observatory, several restaurants and a roof garden. This project and nearly 200 more are detailed in Never Built New York,Metropolis Books' monumental new blockbuster presenting 200 years of visionary architectural plans for unbuilt subways, bridges, parks, airports, stadiums, streets, train stations and, of course, skyscrapers. Hear the authors in conversation with Barry Bergdoll tonight at AIA New York, listen to author Sam Lubell on WNYC / Morning Edition, or browse the rest of our Holiday Gift Guide 2017! continue to blog
Featured this weekend in the Wall Street Journal Magazine, Never Built New York is new, and already a best-seller, from Metropolis Books. Reproduced here is Diller Scofidio + Renfro's ambitious never-built 2008 proposal for Stapleton Homeport—a radical, 1,400 unit housing development with 240,000 square feet of retail and 700,000 square feet of open space on the eastern shore of Staten Island. One of three housing unit types, this angled "tidal tower" would have extended over the harbor from a reconstructed tidal marsh connected by a system of boardwalks. continue to blog
Reproduced from Metropolis Books'Holiday Gift bestseller, Never Built New York, Frank Lloyd Wright's 1959 Key Project for Ellis Island proposed "casual, inspired living, minus the usual big-city clamour." The last commission Wright accepted before his death in April of the same year, it was a car-less development plan for the recently decommissioned Ellis Island featuring moving sidewalks and a circular podium superimposed on the Island's rectangular shape, upon which would rest apartments for 7,500 residents. Towers supported by suspension cables would have contained more apartments and a 500-room hotel. The domes were meant for theaters, hospitals, churches, schools, a library and a sports arena. An "agora" embedded in the landscape was earmarked for a planetarium, cinema, shops, banks, restaurants and nightclubs. A yacht basin would have accommodated 450 boats. Hear more about this project and others on NPR's Science Friday! continue to blog
Daniel Libeskind's unbuilt 54-story double-helix-like midtown residential tower with cut out "sky gardens" (2007) is reproduced from Never Built New York, THE architecture book of the year. Join us November 14 for the launch of this "fascinating scholarly tour de force" Live from the NYPL, where Paul Holdengraber will host a conversation between Never Built New York author Sam Lubel and architects Elizabeth Diller, Steven Holl and Libeskind himself, who writes in his Introduction, "The drawings in this book are, for me, not a compendium of nostalgia, regret, or opportunities missed. They are, on the contrary, drawing the open mind to rethink the built and the unbuilt." continue to blog
Paul Rudolph's 1967 design for City Corridor—a complex of connected buildings with a monorail, bridges, terraces and submerged highway—was meant to revive Robert Moses' doomed Lower Manhattan Expressway connecting the Williamsburg and Manhattan Bridges. It is reproduced from Never Built New York, the fascinating new collection of visionary unbuilt NYC architecture plans, which launches Monday, November 14 Live from the NYPL. Please join Metropolis Books and Paul Holdengraber for a conversation between Never Built New York author Sam Lubell and architects Elizabeth Diller, Steven Holl and Daniel Libeskind, all of whom are featured in the book. continue to blog
Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates' 1994 proposal for a hotel, retail and entertainment complex near the corner of 42nd Street and 8th Avenue was meant to be the "gateway" to the city's much-vaunted 42nd Street Development Project. Sadly, the architects, "already at odds with their 'schlock' developers," lost the competition, according to Never Built New York authors Greg Goldin and Sam Lubell. "The designers’ idea was to wrap the hotel’s base, and the retail buildings around it, in protruding square billboards plastered with colorful, frenetic imagery, an appropriate nod to Times Square itself. The tower was to be topped by a gigantic sunburst logo resembling a jester’s cap, blurring the line between signage and structure in Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown’s classic fashion. 'We wanted the quality of the building to come from the communication itself,' said Scott Brown. 'The chief idea was to put that communication on the street, and then on the regional scale, seen from a distance. In between things are pretty simple...it’s a decorated shed.'" See Carol Kino's fascinating illustrated feature asking "What went wrong" with 13 key projects in today's Wall Street Journal Magazine. continue to blog
Diller Scofidio + Renfro's unbuilt 2001 design for Eyebeam Museum of Art and Technology is reproduced from Never Built New York, Metropolis Books' critically acclaimed "catalog of dashed dreams and dodged nightmares" (New York Times) collecting more than 200 visionary architectural plans for unbuilt subways, bridges, parks, airports, stadiums, streets, train stations and skyscrapers throughout the five boroughs. The book launches tonight, Monday, November 14 Live from the NYPL, where Paul Holdengraber will host architects Elizabeth Diller, Steven Holl and Daniel Libeskind in conversation with Never Built New York author Sam Lubel. continue to blog
One of nearly 200 unbuilt architecture projects collected in Metropolis Books' highly anticipated, 408-page blockbuster Never Built New York, Daniel Libeskind's 2002 master-plan for the new World Trade Center called for a spiral-shaped set of office buildings, increasing in height from 61 stories to over 100, public space, a transportation hub and cultural facilities surrounding the World Trade Center Memorial. NBNY authors Greg Goldin and Sam Lubell write, "No unbuilt project in recent New York history was as well documented—and as horribly bungled" as Libeskind's 1776-foot-tall-tower. continue to blog
How did Never Built New York's unrealized projects meet their fate—and what did their makers learn from the experience? On Sunday, February 4th, Never Built New York author Sam Lubell and architecture critic Alexandra Lange moderate a discussion at the Queens Museum with twelve architects, planners, and historians discussing the stories behind the show’s unrealized urban visions. continue to blog
Sunday, October 29 from 2-4PM, the Queens Museum presents a behind-the-scenes look into the building of Never Built New York with Sam Lubell, Christian Wassmann and Joshua Jordan, the exhibition’s co-curator, designer, and fabricator, respectively. The exhibition collaborators will discuss how the exhibition came to fruition, from the original idea to re-imagine a city that might have been to the selection of speculative projects and physical layout at Queens Museum with original drawings and models, as well as custom fabricated ghost structures on the Museum’s Panorama of the City of New York. continue to blog
Monday, November 14 from 7-9 PM, Paul Holdengraber and Metropolis Books present internationally acclaimed architects Daniel Libeskind, Steven Holl and Elizabeth Diller in conversation with moderator and Never Built New York author Sam Lubell, as they imagine what New York City would have been like if the ideas of some of the world's greatest architectural dreamers had made it beyond the drawing boards and into built form. Join us for the launch of this "fascinating scholarly tour de force!" continue to blog
Join Hennessey & Ingalls Friday, October 28th at 6PM for a discussion and book signing with Greg Goldin and Sam Lubell, authors of the new Metropolis Books blockbuster, Never Built New York, which noted architectural historian Kenneth Frampton calls "a fascinating scholarly tour de force, ultimately paralleling in its brilliant ambition the infinite spectrum of its subject matter." continue to blog
FORMAT: Hbk, 11.5 x 8.5 in. / 408 pgs / 220 color / 220 b&w. LIST PRICE: U.S. $55.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $72.5 ISBN: 9781938922756 PUBLISHER: Metropolis Books AVAILABLE: 10/25/2016 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Active AVAILABILITY: Out of stock TERRITORY: WRLD Export via T&H
Published by Metropolis Books. By Greg Goldin, Sam Lubell. Foreword by Daniel Libeskind.
New York City as it might have been: 200 years of visionary architectural plans for unbuilt subways, bridges, parks, airports, stadiums, streets, train stations and, of course, skyscrapers
Never Built New York shows us the visionary architectural ideas of the city's greatest dreamers across two centuries of New York City history. Nearly 200 proposals spanning 200 years encompass bridges, skyscrapers, master plans, parks, transit schemes, amusements, airports, plans to fill in rivers and extend Manhattan, and much, much more. Included are alternate visions for Central Park, Columbus Circle, Lincoln Center, MoMA, the UN, Grand Central Terminal, the World Trade Center site and other highlights such as: Alfred Ely Beach’s system of airtight subway cars propelled via atmospheric pressure; Frank Lloyd Wright’s last project, his Key Plan for Ellis Island, on which he would have developed his dream city; Buckminster Fuller’s design for Brooklyn’s Dodger Stadium, complete with giant geodesic dome to shield players and fans from the rain; developer William Zeckendorf’s Rooftop Airport, perched on steel columns 200 feet above street level, spanning from 24th to 71st Street, Ninth Avenue to the Hudson River; John Johansen’s Leapfrog City proposal to create an entirely new neighborhood atop the tenements of East Harlem; and Stephen Holl’s Bridge of Houses, offering options from SROs to modest studios to luxury apartments on a segment of what is now the High Line.
Fact-filled and entertaining texts, plus sketches, renderings, prints and models drawn from archives across the country tell stories of ideas that would have drastically transformed the way we inhabit and move through the city.
Sam Lubell has written seven books about architecture: Never Built New York, Midcentury Modern Architecture Guide, Never Built Los Angeles, Julius Shulman Los Angeles: The Birth of a Modern Metropolis, Paris 2000+, London 2000+ and Living West. He is a contract writer for Wired and has written for The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Magazine, New York Magazine, Architect, The Architect’s Newspaper, Architectural Record, Architectural Review, Wallpaper*, Contract and other publications. He co-curated the A+D Architecture and Design Museum, Los Angeles, exhibition Never Built Los Angeles in 2013. He lives in New York City.
Greg Goldin is co-author of Never Built Los Angeles (Metropolis Books, 2013) and was co-curator of the exhibition Never Built Los Angeles, which premiered at the A+D Architecture and Design Museum, Los Angeles, in July 2013. He was the recipient of a coveted Getty Research Institute grant for Pacific Standard Time Presents: Modern Architecture in L.A. in 2011. For more than a decade, he was the architecture critic at Los Angeles magazine. His work has appeared in The Los Angeles Times, Architectural Record, Architect’s Newspaper, Rolling Stone, Playboy and dozens of other magazines. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and daughter.
Architect Daniel Libeskind is an international figure in architecture and urban design. As Principal Design Architect for Studio Libeskind, Mr. Libeskind speaks widely on the art of architecture in universities and professional summits. The Studio has completed buildings that range from museums and concert halls to convention centers, university buildings, hotels, shopping centers and residential towers. His architecture and ideas have been the subject of many articles and exhibitions, influencing the field of architecture and the development of cities and culture. Mr. Libeskind lives in New York with his wife and business partner, Nina Libeskind.
