The tetrahedron is the coolest of all of Manhattan’s current residential construction projects. The 709-unit building at West 57th St and the West Side Highway is a jagged, highly unique pyramid designed by young Danish hotshot architect Bjarke Ingels. A tetrahedron is a polyhedron with four triangle faces, three of which meet at each corner. Until today, the project was publicly unnamed and generally known as “the tetrahedron,” because that’s very distinctive word and a lot of fun to say. But today, the Durst Organization announced the building’s official name in the New York Times. That name, unfortunately, is “Via.”
Booooooorrrriiiiiing. Also, dumb. Helena Durst, the lead developer on the project (and serial killer Robert Durst’s niece), named it Via because drivers enter Manhattan via the West Side Highway. Okayyyyyy. Curbed called the name “anticlimactic,” which it is, in addition to being boring and dumb.
Why not call it the Tetrahedron? That’s what everyone is going to call it anyway, like how the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge will forever be known as the Triborough. Or if not the Tetrahedron, how about the Jinx? Since the surrounding buildings, Helena and Frank, are named after Durst family members, why not keep with tradition and name it after ol’ Uncle Robert?
(Image: BIG/Starr Whitehouse)
