Work has started on the construction of 56 Leonard Street, a 56-storey residential tower in New York designed by architects Herzog & de Meuron. The tower, the architects’ first, will be built on the corner of Leonard Street and Church Street in Tribeca.

The following information is from the architects:

On the threshold of its fourth decade, Herzog & de Meuron is poised to reinvent another great architectural prototype as construction begins in New York City on the first hi-rise tower of the firm’s career. 56 Leonard Street will be a 57-story residential condominium building at the intersection of Church Street and Leonard Street in the Tribeca Historic District of downtown Manhattan, where it will rise above cobbled streets and historic 19th century neighbors.

The tower will house 145 residences, each with its own unique floor plan and private outdoor space, in a veritable cascade of individual homes that the architects describe as ‘houses stacked in the sky,’ blending indoors and outdoors seamlessly together.

With its articulated surfaces, dramatic cantilevers, profiled slab edges, profusion of balconies, expanses of glass, and views from downtown Manhattan to as far as the Atlantic Ocean, Herzog & de Meuron’s 56 Leonard Street breaks down the old image of the high-rise as a sleek, hermetically sealed urban object to propose instead a thoughtful, daring and ultimately dazzling new alternative — the iconic American skyscraper re-envisioned as a pixilated vertical layering of individually sculpted, highly customized, graceful private residences opening to the atmosphere.

The architects’ design for 56 Leonard Street also updates the relationship between private tower and public streetscape with an articulated base whose cantilevers generate a sense of movement and permeability. Here, the building’s defining corner will be the site of a major commissioned sculpture by internationally celebrated London-based artist Anish Kapoor.

Fully integrated into the architecture itself as if to say that culture and the city are indivisible, Kapoor’s massive, reflective stainless steel piece – an enigmatic balloon-like form that appears to be combating compression from above – will be a new cultural landmark in Tribeca and the artist’s first permanent public work in New York City.

Kapoor’s sculptural contribution to 56 Leonard Street extends his ongoing exploration of physical and psychological space, as in such works as the ‘Cloud Gate’ in Chicago’s Millennium Park and the recent mammoth temporary installation ‘Sky Mirror’ at Rockefeller Center in Midtown Manhattan.

Homes available at 56 Leonard Street will range in size from 1,430 square feet to 6,380 square feet, and will include two- to five-bedroom residences and 10 penthouses. Prices for the residences at 56 Leonard Street range from $3.5 million to $33 million.

56 Leonard Street has been developed by Izak Senbahar and Simon Elias of Alexico Group LLC, New York City, developer of such acclaimed Manhattan projects as The Mark by Jacques Grange and 165 Charles Street by Richard Meier.

Costas Kondylis & Partners of New York City is serving as executive architect for the building. Construction manager for 56 Leonard Street is Hunter Roberts, New York City. Exclusive sales and marketing agent for the project is Corcoran Sunshine Marketing Group.

Occupancy at 56 Leonard Street is anticipated in late fall 2010.

At 56 Leonard Street, the architects’ intention is to preserve the celebratory spirit of traditional skyscrapers while introducing new structural possibilities and suggesting fresh ways for people inside such towers to relate to their city.

Inspired by the permeability and spatial qualities of Modernist houses and the great American dream of a customized home, Herzog & de Meuron has replaced the usual extrusion of standardized skyscraper floor plates with a staggered progression of structural slabs turning slightly off axis by degrees as they ascend, creating constant variety among the apartment floor plans.

This structural arrangement of floor plates at 56 Leonard Street will create an irregular flurry of cantilevered terraces up and down the building, making plays of light and shadow that give the tower a shimmering, animated appearance on the skyline and widely varying interiors. 56 Leonard Street contains five key zones ascending from street to sky: lobby, ‘townhouse’ residences, amenities, tower residences, and penthouses.