8 Spruce Street, New York's Tallest Residential Building Designed By Frank Gehry

This is the much-anticipated Frank Gehry-designed Lower Manhattan residential skyscraper, and it is now ready for renters. Located at 8 Spruce Street, just east of City Hall Park in Lower Manhattan, the 76-story rental apartment boasts of walls of stainless-steel panels and bay windows that rippled and curled like a zipper run amok. The building was designed by Los Angeles architect, Frank Gehry, 81.The building has 903 units, and stands at 870 feet. It is by a nose New York’s tallest residential building. Gehry has produced a gawky beauty that captures the open-ended energy of the city. Gehry slims the tower so that it frames the surroundings rather than obliterating them. The New York Times' architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff said of the building, "Only now, as the building nears completion, is it possible to appreciate what Mr. Gehry has accomplished: the finest skyscraper to rise in New York since Eero Saarinen’s CBS building went up 46 years ago."

Moncler Flagship Store Window Display And Moncler Grenoble Fall Winter 2011 Fashion Show At Grand Central Station

Moncler, the Italian brand that makes puffy jackets chic, has a new window display in its flagship store in SoHo. The boutique is located at 90 Prince Street (at Mercer Street).

Last week, the Moncler Grenoble Fall Winter 2011 Fashion Presentation took place at Grand Central Terminal.

iPhone Photographer Sion Fullana: "Photographing NYC With iPhone" at the SoHo Apple Store

Earlier this evening, iPhone photographer SION FULLANA spoke about the new medium of iPhone photography at the SoHo Apple Store at 103 Prince Street in an event called "Photographing NYC With iPhone." Mr. Fullana discussed his process and presented his recent work. I photographed Mr. Fullana during his talk using iPhone 4.

Hold Up The Heart - The Times Square Valentine Design

Light Hearted is a public art by Lauren Crahan and John Hartmann, of Brooklyn-based Freecell, in Duffy Square. It is this year's winner of the 2011 Times Square Valentine design competition. The Times Square Valentine is an annual competition to design and build a valentine for display in Times Square in February. This project of the Times Square Alliance Public Art Program is funded in part by the Rockefeller Foundation and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. “Light Hearted” is a ten-foot diameter lightweight construction with an open weave fabric that allows wind to pass through but still captures and reflects light. The main structure is constructed of five pairs of aluminum elliptical loops radially arranged with rotating connections, and covered with a skin of red fabric. Six volunteers will hold up the heart for display for 15 minutes at a time in Duffy Square in New York City’s Times Square from February 10th to 20th. Volunteers can register online at www.lighthearted.us. 

Crahan and Hartmann founded Freecell, a design and fabrication studio for furniture and exhibition design, in Brooklyn, in 1999. She graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design. He is a graduate of the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art. They were finalists in the Young Architects Program 2010 for PS 1 - Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). Their work has been exhibited at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and in New York City at the Henry Urbach Architecture Gallery, Artists Space, and the Van Alen Institute and the Architectural League of New York. Crahan and Hartmann have both taught at the Rhode Island School of Design. (information from http://www.timessquarenyc.org)

Georges Braque's "Landscape At La Ciotat"

This is "Landscape at La Ciotat" by Georges Braque (French, 1882-1963) on exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art. Oil on canvas, 28 1/4 x 23 3/8" (71.7 x 59.4 cm). Before Braque met Pablo Picasso, with whom he invented Cubism, he painted in the bright, bold colors shared by the Fauves, a loosely affiliated group of artists that also included Henri Matisse, André Derain, and Raoul Dufy. They were given this name—meaning "wild beasts"—by an unsympathetic critic in 1905, as a result of the high-pitched colors and anti-naturalistic rendering they embraced. In the summer of 1907 Braque worked in the resort town of La Ciotat, near Marseilles, where he painted this landscape using heavy outlines, flattened space, and intense, harmonic colors (information from the gallery caption).

"Luigi and Luca" Photographic Oeuvre At The Leslie/Lohman Gallery

Italian artist Luigi at the opening reception

Leslie/Lohman Gallery in SoHo

Luigi and Luca, a contemporary photo exhibit opening reception and book launch took place earlier this evening at the Leslie/Lohman Gallery, 26 Wooster Street in SoHo. The exhibition features the works of two young Italian artists, Luigi (pictured above) and Luca which include photographs and video . The event also coincides with the U.S. launch of their recent book, "Private Album" published by All Saints Press, which exposes both the private and public aspects of the lives of the artists. Luigi and Luca collaborate to create a contemporary photographic oeuvre in unusual and innovative  locations. The exhibit runs through March 12, 2011.