Port imperial

In a situation equivalent to Palladio's Redentore in front of Saint Mark's square, this study of a housing project looks directly across Hudson River to Manhattan, the most famous skyline of the world.

A possible first phase is conceived as one palace carved like a huge rock on the black sand into four squares Those look specifically to particular remarkable features of the city, Midtown, Downtown and perpendicular across the river, according to a precise structural geometry which gives to each space a focus point, and nevertheless links them together into one massive building.

The back of the building is seen as a broken composed wall where three towers mark the entrance to two aqueducts framing the project. The front has four classically composed plazas, looking at the ever changing scenery of the river, the skyscrapers reflecting sunrise, daylight, sunset or their glowing interiors at night.

The two plazas on each side are designed as residential, private places, open to the view. The South one, oriented towards Midtown, with a still plane of water above the glittering ripples of the Hudson, reflects the façade of the building composed of four orders interrupted in its centre by a solid colossal temple. The North one opens up so that individual views are provided in all directions.

A carved rock, four classically treated spaces at the scale of New York, distinct landmarks when perceived from far a more intricate landscape when approaching it, with bow-windows glass columns, arcades, set backs, this project refers to the desert, the Laguna of New York and Venice, the Renaissance vocabulary and order, and stands between Nature an Man.