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For Barry Diller's IAC Offices,
Glass Arcs Evoke Boat Sails --
Company's Uncharted Course
By SARA SILVER
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
January 11, 2006; Page B1
In the past decade, Barry Diller's IAC/InterActiveCorp has amassed a
sprawling Internet and retail empire that includes Ticketmaster,
television shopping network HSN, online dating service Match.com and
search engine Ask Jeeves Inc.
Now Mr. Diller is working on another project that will bring together
the half-dozen Manhattan offices of his companies in a $100 million,
10-story glass tower in an unconventional part of Manhattan made up
of warehouses and light industrial buildings.
An architectural model for the $100 million glass building that will
house the Manhattan offices of Barry Diller's IAC/InterActiveCorp
conglomerate.
Designed by noted architect Frank Gehry, the geometric façade has
eight skyward arcs of glass that will mimic wind-whipped sails of
boats making their way along the Hudson River, just across the West
Side Highway. Besides reflecting both men's love of sailing, the
design of the building in the West Chelsea neighborhood incorporates
Mr. Diller's admission that IAC is forming itself without a compass
for guidance. "We're making it up as we go along in the interactive
[commerce] area, and because of the nature of interactive revenue,
there are few rules," Mr. Diller says.
Mr. Diller has put more planning into the IAC building, signing a 75-
year lease in 2003 for the 29,380-square-foot site -- a former truck
garage on the West Side Highway between 18th and 19th streets.
The building uses low-iron glass that removes its normal greenish
tinge -- and makes the glass clearer. People working inside the
building will have a clear view of the river and the city. At night,
the lights of the building will make the walls seem transparent.
The lobby will attempt to dramatize images of the company's more than
50 brands on a floor-to-ceiling interactive screen running the length
of the building. The images will be visible to pedestrians and to
passing cars through a transparent horizontal band.
The location is part of the fast-growing West Chelsea area, along a
disused railroad, known as the High Line, that the city is starting
to transform into an above-ground park. CSX Corp. donated the 22-
block rail line, which stretches along 10th Avenue from 14th to 30th
streets, to the city in November, and the project is expected to
begin this year as contractors remove the rails and build stairs and
elevators.
The first phase of landscaping, planting and building pathways is
scheduled to be completed by 2008. Already, the plans have attracted
a frenzy of new development. The Dia Art Foundation, which drew many
galleries to the area, is moving to a new building that will include
a direct entrance to the park. In addition, some 5,500 mostly high-
end apartments are being planned for the area, with noted designers
such as Jean Nouvel and Robert A.M. Stern Architects.
Mr. Diller says he hopes the IAC headquarters will further spur
development in the area, where some 200 art galleries mingle with car
washes, taxi garages and trendy clubs. "It is an embryonic
neighborhood...where we could be a participant instead of just
tacking onto the Rockefellers' legacy," says Mr. Diller, referring to
the family that helped shape much of New York City's midtown. "It'll
be a wondrous environment to live, to work, to play."
Expected to open by March 2007, the IAC building is Mr. Gehry's first
in New York City. Like his Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, and
the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, the IAC headquarters is
as much a sculptural venture as an architectural one.
"It's not going to be that bombastic. Its façade is very sensuous,
almost feminine," Mr. Gehry says of the building. "I'm a very
pragmatic architect, but people think I'm not because of the shapes."
The skeleton of the 200,000-square-foot building already rises above
the walls of the construction site, ringed by a white banner
displaying the logos of IAC's many companies.
Working within zoning requirements that floors above 75 feet be set
back from the lower part of the building, the Los Angeles-based Gehry
Partners, LLP created a terrace on top of the lower five "sails."
Behind the three upper "sails," the building's atrium runs between
the sixth and seventh floors. Pathways separate the free-standing
structure from neighboring buildings to reveal its entire shape.
The building's diagonal walls, tilted columns and irregular spaces
allow for various configurations and open-plan offices. Joseph Rose,
the former city planning commission chairman who is now a partner of
Georgetown Co., the developers overseeing the construction, says
other contractors who notice the tilted structures have called his
office, saying his contractors aren't "pouring your concrete
straight."
Although there is obvious risk in developing a building three avenues
and four streets away from the nearest subway line, developers say
the occupancy cost of the space will be similar to what IAC was
paying for its midtown offices.
IAC says it has already fixed environmental problems on the site,
which long ago had been used to store gas. Real-estate experts point
out that companies assume additional risks when they own rather than
lease their office space. Owning ties up capital and limits
flexibility in the future if IAC expands more than expected or
contracts. Mr. Diller has said he will initially move more than 300
workers into the building, but it has room for 500.
Construction has begun on a tower that will house offices of
businesses that comprise Barry Diller's IAC/InterActiveCorp. The
building, designed by Frank Gehry, is located on Manhattan's west
side. It is expected to open by March 2007.
Mr. Diller has obtained $80 million in tax-free Liberty Bonds to help
finance the project. Those were set up to help New York recover from
the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the IAC project is one of
the few non-downtown office buildings to receive them.
The new headquarters is meant to give some physical coherence to IAC,
whose Manhattan employees are dispersed throughout five floors of a
tower next to Carnegie Hall -- its current main office -- and five
other locations. "We don't want to have to make appointments to see
each other," says Jason Stewart, IAC's chief administrative officer
who is overseeing the project. Mr. Gehry designed the Sunset
Boulevard building where IAC consolidated its West Hollywood
operations last summer.
The move to physically join the various Manhattan offices of IAC is
being reinforced in-house. In December, Mr. Diller created the
position of president to oversee operations throughout the
conglomerate, which earned $700 million on revenue of $5.3 billion in
the 12 months through last September. Filling the position is Doug
Lebda, founder of IAC's fast-growing loan exchange LendingTree.
Freed up to concentrate on strategy, Mr. Diller is focused on Ask
Jeeves, the search engine IAC purchased for $1.85 billion in stock in
March. Charged with coordinating the online presence of the disparate
companies, Ask Jeeves has already centralized sales in a single
Manhattan office and improved online links to the other IAC sites.
The building is expected to give Mr. Diller a place on the Manhattan
architectural map of buildings that stand for the corporations that
built them -- like the Seagram Building, Lever House and Phillip
Johnson's AT&T Building, now the Sony Building. But how it stacks up
against these trophies will be up to architecture critics to decide.
"Historically, corporations have looked to superstar architects to
give them cachet and to advertise their business with signature
buildings," says Mark Cottle, assistant professor at Georgia Tech
College of Architecture. "There are times when it can backfire when
that building doesn't relate to what's there now but instead to a new
collection of look-at-me buildings by global architects."
Glass Arcs Evoke Boat Sails --
Company's Uncharted Course
By SARA SILVER
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
January 11, 2006; Page B1
In the past decade, Barry Diller's IAC/InterActiveCorp has amassed a
sprawling Internet and retail empire that includes Ticketmaster,
television shopping network HSN, online dating service Match.com and
search engine Ask Jeeves Inc.
Now Mr. Diller is working on another project that will bring together
the half-dozen Manhattan offices of his companies in a $100 million,
10-story glass tower in an unconventional part of Manhattan made up
of warehouses and light industrial buildings.
An architectural model for the $100 million glass building that will
house the Manhattan offices of Barry Diller's IAC/InterActiveCorp
conglomerate.
Designed by noted architect Frank Gehry, the geometric façade has
eight skyward arcs of glass that will mimic wind-whipped sails of
boats making their way along the Hudson River, just across the West
Side Highway. Besides reflecting both men's love of sailing, the
design of the building in the West Chelsea neighborhood incorporates
Mr. Diller's admission that IAC is forming itself without a compass
for guidance. "We're making it up as we go along in the interactive
[commerce] area, and because of the nature of interactive revenue,
there are few rules," Mr. Diller says.
Mr. Diller has put more planning into the IAC building, signing a 75-
year lease in 2003 for the 29,380-square-foot site -- a former truck
garage on the West Side Highway between 18th and 19th streets.
The building uses low-iron glass that removes its normal greenish
tinge -- and makes the glass clearer. People working inside the
building will have a clear view of the river and the city. At night,
the lights of the building will make the walls seem transparent.
The lobby will attempt to dramatize images of the company's more than
50 brands on a floor-to-ceiling interactive screen running the length
of the building. The images will be visible to pedestrians and to
passing cars through a transparent horizontal band.
The location is part of the fast-growing West Chelsea area, along a
disused railroad, known as the High Line, that the city is starting
to transform into an above-ground park. CSX Corp. donated the 22-
block rail line, which stretches along 10th Avenue from 14th to 30th
streets, to the city in November, and the project is expected to
begin this year as contractors remove the rails and build stairs and
elevators.
The first phase of landscaping, planting and building pathways is
scheduled to be completed by 2008. Already, the plans have attracted
a frenzy of new development. The Dia Art Foundation, which drew many
galleries to the area, is moving to a new building that will include
a direct entrance to the park. In addition, some 5,500 mostly high-
end apartments are being planned for the area, with noted designers
such as Jean Nouvel and Robert A.M. Stern Architects.
Mr. Diller says he hopes the IAC headquarters will further spur
development in the area, where some 200 art galleries mingle with car
washes, taxi garages and trendy clubs. "It is an embryonic
neighborhood...where we could be a participant instead of just
tacking onto the Rockefellers' legacy," says Mr. Diller, referring to
the family that helped shape much of New York City's midtown. "It'll
be a wondrous environment to live, to work, to play."
Expected to open by March 2007, the IAC building is Mr. Gehry's first
in New York City. Like his Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, and
the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, the IAC headquarters is
as much a sculptural venture as an architectural one.
"It's not going to be that bombastic. Its façade is very sensuous,
almost feminine," Mr. Gehry says of the building. "I'm a very
pragmatic architect, but people think I'm not because of the shapes."
The skeleton of the 200,000-square-foot building already rises above
the walls of the construction site, ringed by a white banner
displaying the logos of IAC's many companies.
Working within zoning requirements that floors above 75 feet be set
back from the lower part of the building, the Los Angeles-based Gehry
Partners, LLP created a terrace on top of the lower five "sails."
Behind the three upper "sails," the building's atrium runs between
the sixth and seventh floors. Pathways separate the free-standing
structure from neighboring buildings to reveal its entire shape.
The building's diagonal walls, tilted columns and irregular spaces
allow for various configurations and open-plan offices. Joseph Rose,
the former city planning commission chairman who is now a partner of
Georgetown Co., the developers overseeing the construction, says
other contractors who notice the tilted structures have called his
office, saying his contractors aren't "pouring your concrete
straight."
Although there is obvious risk in developing a building three avenues
and four streets away from the nearest subway line, developers say
the occupancy cost of the space will be similar to what IAC was
paying for its midtown offices.
IAC says it has already fixed environmental problems on the site,
which long ago had been used to store gas. Real-estate experts point
out that companies assume additional risks when they own rather than
lease their office space. Owning ties up capital and limits
flexibility in the future if IAC expands more than expected or
contracts. Mr. Diller has said he will initially move more than 300
workers into the building, but it has room for 500.
Construction has begun on a tower that will house offices of
businesses that comprise Barry Diller's IAC/InterActiveCorp. The
building, designed by Frank Gehry, is located on Manhattan's west
side. It is expected to open by March 2007.
Mr. Diller has obtained $80 million in tax-free Liberty Bonds to help
finance the project. Those were set up to help New York recover from
the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the IAC project is one of
the few non-downtown office buildings to receive them.
The new headquarters is meant to give some physical coherence to IAC,
whose Manhattan employees are dispersed throughout five floors of a
tower next to Carnegie Hall -- its current main office -- and five
other locations. "We don't want to have to make appointments to see
each other," says Jason Stewart, IAC's chief administrative officer
who is overseeing the project. Mr. Gehry designed the Sunset
Boulevard building where IAC consolidated its West Hollywood
operations last summer.
The move to physically join the various Manhattan offices of IAC is
being reinforced in-house. In December, Mr. Diller created the
position of president to oversee operations throughout the
conglomerate, which earned $700 million on revenue of $5.3 billion in
the 12 months through last September. Filling the position is Doug
Lebda, founder of IAC's fast-growing loan exchange LendingTree.
Freed up to concentrate on strategy, Mr. Diller is focused on Ask
Jeeves, the search engine IAC purchased for $1.85 billion in stock in
March. Charged with coordinating the online presence of the disparate
companies, Ask Jeeves has already centralized sales in a single
Manhattan office and improved online links to the other IAC sites.
The building is expected to give Mr. Diller a place on the Manhattan
architectural map of buildings that stand for the corporations that
built them -- like the Seagram Building, Lever House and Phillip
Johnson's AT&T Building, now the Sony Building. But how it stacks up
against these trophies will be up to architecture critics to decide.
"Historically, corporations have looked to superstar architects to
give them cachet and to advertise their business with signature
buildings," says Mark Cottle, assistant professor at Georgia Tech
College of Architecture. "There are times when it can backfire when
that building doesn't relate to what's there now but instead to a new
collection of look-at-me buildings by global architects."