New York from Behind the Glass: An Architectural Drive Through the Summer of 2025

Most architectural journeys in New York begin on foot. You walk the grid. You feel the city. You breathe the scale, the rhythm, the texture. But not this time. This was New York through a windshield — a moving frame, a cinematic lens, a reverse voyeurism where the buildings watched me as I passed.

I was inside the car. The city was outside the glass.

Times Square: Same Lights, New Questions

I began, naturally, in Times Square. Some say it never changes. But architects see beyond the LED glare. There was something oddly organic this time. The Louis Vuitton “trunk” building — a strange, sculptural mass shaped like a gigantic travel case — loomed like a surrealist statement on branding, tourism, and temporality. Is it architecture or advertisement? A structure or a shell? The line between building and billboard has never been thinner. You wonder if the city is dressing up for someone else.

JPMorgan’s New Tower: Corporate Power in Steel and Glass

Further downtown, the under-construction JPMorgan Chase headquarters by Foster + Partners is rising with corporate ambition. Slated to become one of the tallest commercial towers in Manhattan, the building felt nearly complete. Sleek, assertive, and unapologetically vertical, it’s a flex of institutional architecture — efficient, elegant, and expensive. The refined geometry signals a new era of post-pandemic commercial space, where design competes with skyline legacy.

During my recent visit to New York, I noticed that the new JPMorgan Chase tower is very close to completion. I anticipate a significant development in the coming days, as the cladding appears to be finished. The installation of both the stone and silver cladding gives the impression that the building is now largely complete.

This is not just a building. It’s a forecast.

Hudson Yards and The Vessel: A Mirror to Modernity

Heading west, Hudson Yards unfolds like a manifesto. Love it or loathe it, you can’t ignore it. The Vessel, still haunting in its silent suspension, stood like a copper-colored question mark. Viewed from the outside and through the mall’s glass, it becomes more reflective than interactive now — a monument to ambition, halted by tragedy.

Walking the inner plaza, one sees clean lines and calculated luxury. Glass facades like those on 35 Hudson and The Shops feel less about community and more about capital. But the area works as an ecosystem. If Bryant Park was New York’s living room, Hudson Yards is its penthouse — polished, curated, and air-conditioned.

The Louis Vuitton Trunk: Architecture or Advertising?

Driving past the enormous Louis Vuitton installation in Times Square —a building designed to resemble stacked luxury trunks— it’s impossible not to pause. The gesture is bold, theatrical, and unmistakably branded. But while its form is visually striking and clearly intentional, the structure lives in a gray area between sculptural icon and architectural object. Functionally, it’s a marvel of marketing more than a feat of architecture. The building operates like a massive billboard, an Instagram trap, a three-dimensional logo. From a design perspective, it’s sculptural and organic, but in a way that distances itself from the urban discipline of architecture. It’s less about spatial experience and more about symbolic saturation. In a city known for architectural rigor and design excellence, such a form feels slightly out of sync — interesting, even admirable for its branding ambition, but ultimately more commercial theater than urban architecture.

The Arabic Wall: A Message from Gaza in the Middle of Manhattan

In SoHo, something unexpected: Arabic calligraphy painted high on a weathered wall. “This book belongs to Majed Allah Saad. Purchased in Gaza, February 1892 .” هذا الكتاب يخص صاحبه فتح الله سعد اشتراه من ماله غرة اذار ١٨٩٢

The mural, part of a project by Palestinian filmmaker Emily Jacir, is more than art. It’s a displacement made visible, a reminder that every city carries invisible scripts. Below it, colorful portraits of Mother Teresa and Gandhi stare at each other on another mural — two moral figures cast as symbols in a place dominated by finance and fashion.

“At first glance, it feels like a personal inscription — a quiet claim of ownership, as if the wall still remembers its rightful tenant. But as I later discovered, this line is part of a powerful artwork by filmmaker Emily Jacir, inspired by the handwritten notes found inside books left behind in the homes of displaced Palestinians. What seems like nostalgia is, in fact, an act of cultural resistance — an architectural memory refusing to be erased.”

The New Art Museum: Wrapping Up a New Chapter

Further down the block, the New Museum is quietly finishing its expansion. The construction site was lit like a surgical theater — sterile and geometric. The new annex, designed by OMA, echoes the existing stacked-box design but with more opacity and mystery. Once complete, this will redefine Bowery’s creative corridor, cementing its shift from gritty to global.

Reflections from a Moving City

New York by car is not just a different pace — it’s a different narrative. The windshield divides you from the street but connects you to the skyline. From traffic jams to turning lanes, the experience becomes architectural in motion.

270 Park Avenue: Foster’s Latest Realized Vision

The new JPMorgan Chase tower at 270 Park Avenue, crafted by Foster + Partners, is wearing its ambition—literally—out in the skyline. As of early 2025, its steel superstructure and triple‑glazed facade are topped out, and it stands poised to become the tallest all‑electric skyscraper in the city. Designed to hover lightly on the block with fan‑column structure and triangular bracing, it blends high-tech sustainability with refined urban form. The building promises net zero operational emissions, expansive public spaces, and state‑of‑the‑art wellness facilities—all while redefining what a corporate headquarters can be. This is architecture that acknowledges its city, by using less ground to give back more to its streets.

You pass styles, symbols, and stories. You see buildings not from their lobbies, but from their shadows, their backs, their side facades. You notice setbacks, signage, and scaffolding. You start to read the city like a rough draft.

And in that draft, architecture is everywhere — sometimes hidden, sometimes loud, always alive.