Elegantly, Foster Challenges The Upper East Side

“I expect Norman Foster’s design for a new residential tower at 980 Madison Avenue to infuriate people. Rising out of the old Parke-Bernet Gallery building, a spare 1950 office building between 76th and 77th Streets, its interlocking elliptical forms throw down a challenge to a neighborhood known for an aversion to bold contemporary architecture. The tower’s height, roughly 30 stories, hardly helps its cause…. With a little trimming, though, this could be the most handsome building to rise along Madison Avenue since the Whitney Museum of American Art was completed 40 years ago.”