![]() ![]() This mirrored observation hall is the heart of the dizzying adventure, but also just the start of it. Yet it’s hard to imagine truly deep reveries taking place within Transcendence as, at the end of the day, it’s a venue largely and beautifully designed for frenzied Instagramming. Kenzo Digital told AN that he envisioned the mirror-clad interior observation area as a “contemplative, meditative space.” And this is true-the whole heady experience, which is meant to bring “the outside environment into the space and then magnify it infinitely,” is humbling and does provoke a certain sense of introspection. The spectacular space, a sort of high-concept house of mirrors perched high above Manhattan, manages to be both grounding and wildly disorienting at once. (Summit One Vanderbilt) (Summit One Vanderbilt) After traveling down another corridor-slash-light installation, visitors emerge into the main observation area of Summit One Vanderbilt: a soaring, bi-level space dubbed Transcendence where every structural surface save for the massive windows is clad in mirrors. The sense-resetting Air experience continues immediately once off the elevators. It’s a story that evolves with each successive space, bringing visitors deeper and deeper into the experience until finally, they become part of it.”Īfter visitors traverse a long corridor complete with pulsing lights and hypnotic sound design, and enter the high-speed elevators, it’s a zippy 43-second ride up to the 92nd floor. As Kenzo Digital described in a press release, “ Air is a living, breathing entity, expressed through its multisensory use of sound, lighting and production design. ![]() In this case, it was created by the artist Kenzo Digital, who leads the immersive storytelling studio of the same name, as part of a larger immersive art experience at Summit One Vanderbilt dubbed Air. Like at Edge, there’s a “pre-show” of sorts involved with the short journey from the ticketing area to Summit One Vanderbilt’s dedicated elevator bank. The Summit Terrace features seating and an outdoor bar. Because the Summit One Vanderbilt experience begins underground amidst the hustle and bustle of a major transit hub with the rumble of subway trains clearly audible in the distance, the transportive nature of the experience is even more impactful than if it were to originate aboveground in the skyscraper proper. (The transit hall, along with an adjacent street-level pedestrian plaza flanking One Vanderbilt, was developed as part of a $220 million transportation and infrastructure investment borne from a private-public partnership between One Vanderbilt developer SL Green and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority). The rather enigmatic start of Summit One Vanderbilt, on the other hand, originates in a subterranean lobby space directly adjacent to a new 4,000-square-foot transit hall that connects Grand Central Terminal and its adjacent subway hub. The journey up to Edge begins on the fourth floor of a luxury shopping mall, and to reach the elevator bank beyond the ticketing booth visitors walk through a winding corridor with sound and light effects that lends the queueing process with a distinctly Disney theme park-esque vibe. The differences between the two attractions begin at their entrances. In turn, visitors are afforded more intimate views of the city but at over 1,000 feet above the street. Whereas the views from Edge, which floats above the far-western fringes of Manhattan in Hudson Yards, are no doubt expansive, One Vanderbilt is situated in the dense heart of Midtown, dwarfing nearby landmark skyscrapers including the MetLife Building, SOM’s 383 Madison Avenue, and, most notably, the Chrysler Building. ![]() Similar to Edge, the panoramic views from Summit One Vanderbilt are stupendous, albeit different.
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