The New York City skyline is dominated by some amazing buildings. Whether it's the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, or even the Statue of Liberty, the City That Never Sleeps is a monument in itself to architecture. Now, a brand-new building is set to tower about the rest in New York, with a 4,000 ft skyscraper due to give NEOM's The Line a run for its money.
Manhattan's 'The Big Bend' is due to be the longest skyscraper in the world, cutting quite a shape in the New York City skyline and looking like an upside-down letter U.
Designed by Ioannis Oikonomou of the architecture firm Oiio Studio in 2017, some assumed The Big Bend was an early April Fool's joke when it was first announced. If plans go ahead, it will push the city's architecture to its limits.
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Oiio's design proposes two residential towers that will rise up on 57th Street, which is better known as Billionaire's Row. Unlike stopping in midair like 432 Park Avenue, the two structures will be joined via an arch to make the 'World’s Longest Building.'
Plans highlight two bases that are occupied by a 22-story condo and two five-story apartment buildings.
As well as strict planning laws in NYC, the taller a skyscraper is, the more expensive it is to build. The Big Bend hopes to get around this by curving the two buildings together in a clever loophole.
The Big Bend would be over 1,000 ft longer than Dubai's Burj Khalifa, which is currently the tallest tower in the world. It would also stand 200 ft taller than One World Trade Center, which is the tallest building in New York City and you might know as the Freedom Tower.
The design of The Big Bend sounds baffling, and with its lifts being able to travel in curves and horizontally in a continuous loop, it sounds like something from Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator. Discussing his design, Oikonomou said: "There are many different ways that can make a building stand out, but in order to do so the building has to literally stand out.
"If we manage to bend our structure instead of bending the zoning rules of New York we would be able to create one of the most prestigious buildings in Manhattan.
"The Big Bend can become a modest architectural solution to the height limitations of Manhattan."
There are plenty of ifs and buts, with many thinking The Big Bend will never be built. Writing for Curbed New York, Amy Pitt suggested: "It seems highly unlikely that a project like this would ever get off the ground, so to speak—community members and preservation groups (including the Municipal Art Society) have already condemned the rise of supertalls along Central Park South, so adding another one to the mix couldn’t possibly go over well.
"There would also be the more banal hurdles—funding, finding a developer who’s keen on this idea, and the like—to cross before something like this could ever happen."
Architect Digest similarly ran an article with the headline, "This Skyscraper Could Ruin New York's Skyline," with concerns that The Big Bend will 'overshadow' Central Park.
There are still plenty of hurdles to leap, and with one of them being thousands of feet in the air, it's a pretty big one. Will The Big Bend ever get built? Watch this space.