While shiny and reflective have become the façade choices du jour in urban architecture, with their latest residential endeavor, Shildan Group offers a counterpoint to the notion that contemporary elegance must necessarily be synonymous with glass.
The leading U.S. supplier of terracotta facades was tapped by Roman and Williams—husband-and-wife team behind the trendy Ace Hotel and interiors for the Standard, High Line—to dress the Fitzroy, a pre-war inspired, 10-story condominium rising steps from Manhattan’s High Line.
Reputed for translating ancient architectural terracotta into a decidedly contemporary language—while retaining the material's natural tactility and warmth—Shildan was the obvious choice for a project that defiantly rejects the highly engineered aesthetic of "crystal towers" and, in the strong words of Roman and Williams principal Stephen Alesch, other manifestations of the “synthetic movement that’s blanketed the earth with coldness.”
In that spirit, project architects specified glazed terracotta in sumptuous emerald, a brand new colorway from Shildan. Referencing thirties triumphs in terracotta—like the famed Eastern Columbia and Carbide and Carbon Buildings—Shildan’s solution offers a new direction for the future of facade design, happily steeped in rich traditions of the past.
