Hasta La Ideas

Back in early 2009, when the financial tidal wave really started giving everyone a soaking, it seemed like we were reporting on a starchitect losing yet another massive multi-million dollar project, usually involving a skyscraper of some sort. Sure, there are still things happening like Frank Gehry‘s troubles with the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi and the perpetually-doomed fate of Norman Foster‘s Las Vegas hotel, but it doesn’t seem to carry the same “the sky is falling!” feeling that these sorts of things used to just two years ago. Whatever the case, we’re not sure whether to feel strangely fondly about this resembling the past, or view it as another loss for architecture (it’s an emotional roller coaster), so we’ll let you decide what to do with the information that Richard Rogers has seen his plans for a skyscraper above New York’s Port Authority Bus Terminal disappear. Though on and off again since 2007, the NY Times reports that the project seemed to be moving forward earlier this year, with developer Vornado saying it had put together a deal with a Chinese company that would give the building the $600 million it needed. Over the last couple of months, that plan seems to have now gone astray, with the investors having taken their money to Park Avenue Plaza instead. As the paper reports, this is the second attempt Vornado has tried putting a tower atop the busy bus terminal, the first in 2000 when it tried to “build a headquarters for Cisco Systems,” but was ultimately thwarted “with the collapse of the dot-com boom.” However, this may not mean that a tower will never find itself on top of the depot, as the Port Authority has said that it will continue to review the skyscraper idea.

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