Private Views: A High-rise Panorama of Manhattan is a book by Andi Schmied, showcasing the views of twenty-five of Manhattan’s most luxurious private residential skyscrapers, which she documented while posing as an apartment-hunting Hungarian billionaire.
Author: Galerie VI PER
About the project
Despite the iconic nature of the Manhattan skyline, there are only four places the public can see it from, even if paying: the Empire State Building, the Rockefeller Center, ONE World Trade Center, and the Edge at Hudson Yards. All other elevated views are a private privilege, only available to owners of luxury penthouses.
Posing as an apartment-hunting Hungarian billionaire, Andi Schmied accessed and documented the views of 25 of the city's most exclusive high-rise properties. Her book, Private Views: A High-rise Panorama of Manhattan offers a glimpse into this elite world. Showcasing the surreal strategies of persuasion used by real estate agents, the book allows readers to bypass the gatekeepers of luxury real estate, guiding them through the sunset from Trump Tower, view from the private club of the tallest residential tower on the planet, and showing samples of the most luxurious materials, such as the Siberian marble used in soaking tubs overlooking the Statue of Liberty.
The book is structured into four main sections: an interview with the author and the fictional billionaire, real estate viewings through photography and transcripted dialogues, informative texts about the world of luxury real estate, and authors' essays. The texts will cover issues such as the history of the view, shadows these buildings cast, sales galleries, amenities, apartment staging, samples of the most luxurious materials, and many others. The contributors’ essays, which are scattered around the book, will highlight the problematic nature of these “Private Views.” The book will be published as part of VI PER's Future Architecture Platform activities.
The book will be published in English.
Authors of text: Sara Emilia Bernat, f-architecture collaborative, Irena Lehkoživová, Ava Lynam, Peter Noever, Jack Self, Andi Schmied, Michael Sorkin, Samuel Stein, Barbora Špičáková, Anthony Vidler, Sharon Zukin.
Graphic design: Tereza Hejmová
hardcover, 230 × 310 mm, aprox. 150 color illustrations, 200 pages
About the author:
Andi Schmied is a visual artist and architect based in Budapest, Hungary. Her work focuses on places that do not follow conventional logic, yet remain part of our cityscape. These vary from areas that have deviated far from their originally planned function (Jing Jin City), utopian architectures (Noguchi Town), or spaces of privilege (Private Views). Schmied graduated from the Bartlett School of Architecture and her work, among other places, has been shown in London (Daniel Blau Gallery, Schwartz Gallery, The White Building), Southampton (John Hansard Gallery), Sapporo (Salon Cojica, HUG Gallery), Beijing (Design Week), Rotterdam (International Architecture Biennale), Budapest (Trafo Gallery, Trapez, OFF Biennale, Kunsthalle). She has been artist-in-resident at S-AIR, Sapporo (Japan), Triangle Arts, New York, DordtYart, Dordrecht (Netherlands), Meetfactory, Prague (Czech Republic), Outpost, Norwich (UK), and MuseumQartier, Vienna (Austria). http://andischmied.com/.
About the publisher
VI PER Gallery based in Prague, Czech Republic focuses on architecture, together with its relations and points of intersection with contemporary art, urbanism, design, and media, as well as the political, legal, social, economic, and ecological contexts, which help to shape architecture and the built environment. VI PER Gallery is part of the pan-European platform Future Architecture. In 2019, VI PER published Steel Cities: The Architecture of Logistics in Central and Eastern Europe (co-published with Park Books, Zurich). http://www.vipergallery.org
Why Are We Doing This?
The financial costs for issuing a publication – of our desired quality – such as Private Views significantly exceeds our own possibilities. We hoped to provide fair compensation for the authors and contributors, as well as for the translation, graphic design, and proofreading. And we now are faced with the costs of printing this publication. For this reason, we decided to offer the book for presales on Hithit and collect the remaining amount for the printing of the book. We would be very glad if you could support our publication!
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