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PREFAB Arieff & Burkhart
"I call this type of design parabuilding : it is the
modern tick on the
postmodern host. New York examples include the
Palace Hotel, a modern
shaft that towers above the historic Vuillard Houses
on Madison Avenue
and 51st Street. Typically, as at the Palace, the
parabuilding is
designed as a discreet background to the existing
host. Not at Soldier
Field. Here modernity erupts with the jubilance of a
prodigal."
New York Times, September, 30 2003 by Herbert Muschamp
"Lord Foster's design is a parabuilding: a new addition that transforms the character of an existing structure. The host building in this case is Hearst's present home at 959 Eighth Avenue, between 56th and 57th Streets. The parabuilding is a faceted tower of steel and glass that rises 42 stories above the host. Herein lies a historical curiosity. The existing building, completed in 1928, was originally designed as the base of a taller structure."
New York Times, October 30, 2001
by Herbert Muschamp
"The parabuilding a new addition to an older structure, continues to entrench itself as a vibrantly contemporary architectural type. The Brooklyn Museum of Art has unveiled the genre's most recent example: a monumental main entrance for the museum's Eastern Parkway facade."
New York Times, September, 20 2000 by Herbert Muschamp
"The host building for Gwathmey Siegel’s parabuilding design for the Mid-Manhattan Library is the former Arnold Constable building which is owned by The New York Public Library. The expansion will add an additional eight floors and 117,000 square feet for library service to the existing 139,000 square foot building.
Gwathmey Siegel & Associates have also designed the new United States Mission to the United Nations; a concrete tower with a cylindrical core of shingled zinc. The windows are narrow slits that become more closely spaced and numerous as the tower rises from base to summit and..."
-arcspace
"Lord Foster, 65, has ample experience designing around historic
buildings. His much-acclaimed addition to the Reichstag in Berlin, featuring a latticed glass dome, has become a symbol of the new unified Germany. For a newly unveiled renovation of the British Museum, he designed a
glass-covered courtyard that architecture critic Paul Goldberger, writing in The New Yorker, called "stunningly beautiful."
(discussion)
-wirednewyork