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11 Most Endangered
2 Columbus Circle
Year Listed: 2004
Location: , New York
Current Status: Lost
Threat: Development
View of the auditorium in the 2 Columbus Circle building in New York City.
Credit: National Trust for Historic Preservation
Significance
Created by architect Edward Durell Stone, who also designed Washington's famed Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, 2 Columbus Circle is a nationally recognized - albeit controversial - icon of the Modern Movement. Sporting a marble skin, porthole windows and a street-level arcade that critics have likened to a row of lollipops, the unorthodox building is radically different from the glass-and-steel boxes typical of its era. Now it is slated to be sold and renovated as a permanent home for the Museum of Arts and Design. That's the good news; the bad news is that the design proposed for the new use would strip 2 Columbus Circle of its architectural integrity, and since it is not protected by New York's preservation ordinance, these changes could be made without any kind of preservation review. This means that unless the new owner can be persuaded of the building's significance, sweeping architectural changes could rob 2 Columbus Circle of its distinctive character and rob America of an engagingly quirky icon of the recent past.
Updates
2008: The redevelopment was completed and the Museum of Arts and Design moved in over the past year. Edward Durell Stone's stylized and historic facade was destroyed to make room for a new design that received particularly bad reviews upon its completion, in the NY Times, the LA Times, the Wall Street Journal, and a mixed review in the New Yorker. The new design is the work of the architect Brad Cloepfil, but one of the most prominent and roundly condemned design elements, the connection of vertical and horizontal bands of windows to read, unmistakably if unintentionally, "HI", or from top to bottom "HE," was widely reported to have resulted from additions to the final design by the Museum, over the architect's objections.
Also in 2008, the New York Times published a series of probing articles by Robin Pogrebin investigating recent decisions and operations of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission. While the Times described the LPC's recent progress and accomplishment in some areas, the series was capped by an editorial calling for reform of the LPC, charging that a lack of transparency, independence, and chronic underfunding at the agency was taking a terrible toll on the city's heritage and character. While it detailed a range of problems, the editorial presented one loss as the prime example in their rallying cry for reform: the failure of the LPC to hold a hearing on 2 Columbus Circle.
A modernist icon in New York City since its construction in 1964, Edward Durell Stone’s striking design at 2 Columbus Circle was lost when the building was transformed by a new owner. During 2006, the Museum of Arts and Design tore down the distinctive marble façade as they prepared the building for radical redesign. Before the bold design was defaced, the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission refused to hold a hearing to consider protecting it through designation, despite a wide outcry among New Yorkers, preservationists, scholars and others passionate about the famous building and concerned about the overall integrity of the city’s landmarking process. With the destruction of the façade and many of the interiors at 2 Columbus Circle, an important part of our architectural heritage is lost.
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