Developer invited to submit another design. Following a lengthy presentation by real estate developer Aby Rosen’s team, Landmarks indicated its clear unwillingness to approve the 26-story tower addition proposed to top the Parke-Bernet building at 980 Madison Avenue within the Upper East Side Historic District.

The project architect Lord Norman Foster started the January 16th presentation with a photograph of the original 1949 Parke-Bernet building and its appearance now, after a 1950s alteration added another full-block story. Foster argued that the heavy, horizontal addition detracted from the original building, leading to the “paradox,” that, as Foster referred to it, a vertical contrast, or tower, would best preserve the design intactness of the original building. (read more…)