"It’s no longer just “who are you wearing?”, it’s becoming “who do you live in?” for new yorkers. why all of a sudden is every big-name firm building a top-of-the-pyramid apartment high rise in nyc? however, the most amazing thing is that they are all actually good projects."

The tower, the architects’ first, will be built on the corner of Leonard Street and Church Street in Tribeca.

A specially commissioned sculpture by Anish Kapoor will sit at the corner of the building at street level.

The following information is from the developer:

CONSTRUCTION BEGINS ON HERZOG & DE MEURON’S 56 LEONARD STREET

Since its formation in 1978, the Basel, Switzerland-based architecture firm of Herzog & de Meuron has achieved international renown for buildings — houses, libraries, schools, stores, museums, hotels, factories, arenas — that strike an uncanny balance between strict refinement and pure invention, practicality and the sublime.

Their recently completed Beijing National Stadium in China, for billions of worldwide spectators the single most enduring image of the 2008 Olympic Games, has redefined the sports arena for the future, while museums like the Tate Modern at Bankside in London and the de Young Museum in San Francisco ambush expectations of what makes a building ideal for art.

With such commissions, Herzog & de Meuron has aimed not for virtuosity but innovation, looking always to the broader culture and art for inspiration. Referring to Andy Warhol, Jacques Herzog has said, “He used common Pop images to say something new. That is exactly what we are interested in: to use well known forms and materials in a new way so that they become alive again.”

On the threshold of its fourth decade, Herzog & de Meuron is poised to reinvent another great architectural prototype as construction begins in New York City on the first hi-rise tower of the firm’s career. 56 Leonard Street will be a 57-story residential condominium building at the intersection of Church Street and Leonard Street in the Tribeca Historic District of downtown Manhattan, where it will rise above cobbled streets and historic 19th century neighbors.

The tower will house 145 residences, each with its own unique floor plan and private outdoor space, in a veritable cascade of individual homes that the architects describe as “houses stacked in the sky,” blending indoors and outdoors seamlessly together.

With its articulated surfaces, dramatic cantilevers, profiled slab edges, profusion of balconies, expanses of glass, and views from downtown Manhattan to as far as the Atlantic Ocean, Herzog & de Meuron’s 56 Leonard Street breaks down the old image of the high-rise as a sleek, hermetically sealed urban object to propose instead a thoughtful, daring and ultimately dazzling new alternative — the iconic American skyscraper re-envisioned as a pixilated vertical layering of individually sculpted, highly customized, graceful private residences opening to the atmosphere.

The architects’ design for 56 Leonard Street also updates the relationship between private tower and public streetscape with an articulated base whose cantilevers generate a sense of movement and permeability. Here, the building’s defining corner will be the site of a major commissioned sculpture by internationally celebrated London-based artist Anish Kapoor.

Kapoor’s sculptural contribution to 56 Leonard Street extends his ongoing exploration of physical and psychological space, as in such works as the “Cloud Gate” in Chicago’s Millennium Park and the recent mammoth temporary installation “Sky Mirror” at Rockefeller Center in Midtown Manhattan.

Homes available at 56 Leonard Street will range in size from 1,430 square feet to 6,380 square feet, and will include two- to five-bedroom residences and 10 penthouses. Prices for the residences at 56 Leonard Street range from $3.5 million to $33 million.

56 Leonard Street has been developed by Izak Senbahar and Simon Elias of Alexico Group LLC, New York City, developer of such acclaimed Manhattan projects as The Mark by Jacques Grange and 165 Charles Street by Richard Meier.

Costas Kondylis & Partners of New York City is serving as executive architect for the building. Construction manager for 56 Leonard Street is Hunter Roberts, New York City. Exclusive sales and marketing agent for the project is Corcoran Sunshine Marketing Group.

Occupancy at 56 Leonard Street is anticipated in late fall 2010.

“We are extremely pleased and honored to be able to create a tower of true global character at a moment when great architectural ferment is reshaping New York City,” said Izak Senbahar of Alexcio. “With 56 Leonard we aspire to make a unique contribution to the fabric of our town with a building that relates directly to the city but is also an outstanding international address.”

THE BUILDING

At 56 Leonard Street, the architects’ intention is to preserve the celebratory spirit of traditional skyscrapers while introducing new structural possibilities and suggesting fresh ways for people inside such towers to relate to their city.

Inspired by the permeability and spatial qualities of Modernist houses and the great American dream of a customized home, Herzog & de Meuron has replaced the usual extrusion of standardized skyscraper floor plates with a staggered progression of structural slabs turning slightly off axis by degrees as they ascend, creating constant variety among the apartment floor plans.

This structural arrangement of floor plates at 56 Leonard Street will create an irregular flurry of cantilevered terraces up and down the building, making plays of light and shadow that give the tower a shimmering, animated appearance on the skyline and widely varying interiors. 56 Leonard Street contains five key zones ascending from street to sky: lobby, “townhouse” residences, amenities, tower residences, and penthouses.

Sheathed in gleaming black granite, the lobby space includes stations for a 24-hour doorman and concierge, with custom designed reception desks by Herzog & de Meuron; private residents’ mail, package and refrigerated storage room; custom-designed visitor seating fixtures; and two separate elevator landings with a total of seven elevators featuring interiors designed by the architects.

Above the 18 foot-high black granite-walled lobby are several floors of residences that relate very directly to the immediate scale and panorama of the neighborhood (homes known by the architects as “the townhouses”) and two full floors of amenities spaces custom designed to the last detail by Herzog & de Meuron.

Other amenities include a fitness center with yoga studio, wet and dry spa features and terrace; a library lounge (above); a screening room; a private dining/conference room; and a Tribeca Tot Room for children’s play and family activities. Every angle and structural element has been designed to create visual access to the cityscape for those inside the building and aesthetic excitement for passersby on the street.

Herzog & de Meuron has said,"We approached the design process for 56 Leonard Street from the inside out, from the homes themselves. But we also considered the outside in terms of the Tribeca neighborhood. Here you have the small townhouses, the old manufacturing buildings, and the high-rise buildings, but also a lot of little corners and surprising things between. The different scales characterize the neighborhood and we wanted to establish a dialogue among them. For us, creating a building is a research process. We call it a journey."