City edition

Architectural Review, The, Nov, 1997 by Catherine Slessor

The outer New York borough of Queens is predominantly a dormitory suburb, dominated by two huge airports (Kennedy International and La Guardia). The last great open spaces of New York were here until the 1940s, when Queens was rapidly developed as suburbia within city limits, in response to returning war veterans' demands for detached dwellings with gardens. However, a good deal of industry also thrives within its boundaries and Queens has its share of bleak tracts populated by featureless factories and industrial buildings. Making anything out of such unexceptional site and typological conditions is a challenge, yet industry must have its place in the city if urban life is not to lose an essential dimension. The recently completed New York Times printing plant by Polshek and Partners is a striking and encouraging example of how this can be achieved.

Located on the edge of a thundering six-lane expressway near La Guardia Airport, the vast new 475 0000 sq ft plant is intended to significantly expand the production capability of the New York Times, enabling colour to be introduced into the paper's daily edition. Polshek's building prompts obvious analogies with Nicholas Grimshaw's iconic printing plant for the Financial Times in London's Docklands (AR November 1988). Another object building in dreary surroundings beside a major road, the FT Printworks memorably celebrated the mechanical ballet of the print process, framed by an immaculately detailed glass proscenium wall. In the case of the New York Times however, the seductive, 'industrial spectacle' has a much earlier lineage: the paper's original printing plant in Brooklyn (designed by Albert Kahn in 1929), had large street-facing windows where the public could survey the printing, collating and folding operations.

Conscious of the fact that the new plant will be glimpsed by thousands of passing motorists each day, Polshek's strategy is to recompose the typical industrial shed into a series of dynamic forms, articulated with tough, simple textures, vivid colours and superscale graphics. The result is an arresting, animated building-as-billboard that both affirms and dramatises its function on the edge of the expressway.

Distinct volumes express the various functional elements of the programme such as paper storage, printing, sorting and distribution. Scaled largely in response to the great phalanxes of machinery they house, the volumes are arranged not just to maximise the efficiency of the printing and distribution processes, but also to allow views from outside to the rolling presses within (undoubtedly the most emblematic part of the complex). The press hall is contained in a long, narrow volume, running parallel to the expressway, with tall expanses of glazing permitting glimpses of the choreography of machines and papers threading through the building. Two smaller blocks, docked on to the south edge of the press hall, complete the main elevation. One with an angled, mirror glass skin contains offices; the other clad in vibrant blue metal panels, paper storage. To the rear of the press hall, separated by a strip of service accommodation, is the huge rectangular volume that houses the paper's mailing and distribution operations, the crucial backstage part of this modern, industrial theatre.

A newspaper is an integral part of city life, and its buildings reflect not just the corporate power of its proprietor, but also, in some cases, a kind of civic consciousness and pride. So it is fitting that even in a remote part of an outer borough, the New York Times printing plant stands out as a bold and confident new urban landmark.