Not your Standard fare

André Balazs’s Standard hotel opens in NYC. Does New York City need another luxury hotel? It would appear so to Andre Balazs, the boutique hotelier, who brought his Standard brand to the city this year. The erection of the eye-popping glass slab structure occurs in the trendy Meatpacking district and rises from stilts 18 stories above the High Line, a disused elevated rail line that is today one of the city’s hippest parks. Designed by Todd Schliemann of the New York-based Polshek Partnership, the hotel opened in January. It houses 317 guest rooms, several restaurants and bars, and a gym.

The building is decidedly modern, if not instantly iconic, with a mix of styles peppering its interior. Its slab on stilts design recalls the pioneering works of le Corbusier and other notable international style buildings, like the locally based Lever House and United Nations. The interiors,designed by Hollywood set designer Shawn Hausmann and New York based Roman and Williams, "get more modern the higher you go up”, said Balazs in an interview with Vanity Fair magazine.
The hotel lobby, which sits under the High Line, is early 20th century design, while the guest rooms in the tower above are designed with mid-century works in mind. On the top floor is a double height glass enclosed space that houses a supper club and lounge. Its design pays homage to Warren Platner, a protégé of Saarinen’s, who designed the Windows of the World restaurant in the World Trade Center.

If your shopping for a hotel in the city, aside from its fetching design and proximity to all the Meatpacking District has to offer, the best reason to bed down at The Standard is the stunning, unobsturcted views it offers of the city’s most cherished sites: the Empire State Building, the Hudson River, and in the distance, the Statue of Liberty.