Herzog and de Meuron

Uh, it's, it's called 40 Bond Street.

It was developed by, um, Ian Schrager, who was, um, basically the inventor of the boutique hotel, and he did this, this residential development alongside my favorite architects as well, Herzog & de Meuron.

And, and the cladding used recycled, uh, Coca-Cola bottles.

It's, it's really incredible, and when you see it today, it still looks as incredible.

After roughly 20 years working on commercially driven developments, he had reached a point where he wanted to build something he would actually be remembered for.

Eventually, he chose Herzog and de Meuron.

By then, the Swiss firm was already one of the most important architecture practices in the world.

They had transformed an abandoned power station in London into Tate Modern, and they were developing a reputation for buildings that could take something familiar and make you look at it differently.

Another condition Winnett had was that he did not want to erase the existing SunTrust building.

He wanted to somehow make it part of a larger composition.

And Herzog and de Meuron were unusually comfortable working that way.

Rather than seeing the old office block as an obstacle, they saw it as something the new building could respond to.

We did a lot of work with, with the choreographers and dancers out of Sadler's Wells and went to visit studios and, um, people in Europe, in Belgium, and in the Netherlands, France, and what we learned was [laughs] that s- dance studios are rectilinear, and if they're not rectilinear, the choreographers partition them into rectilinear form.

You know, we went to that beautiful building that Herzog de Meuron did, the La Baan Studios, yeah, which are curved.

It's a curved building.

But inside the studios, they, they, they are partitioned now into right angles, [laughs] and, um, because they, the dancers want to be able to clock, you know, time and measure their actions.