Award of Excellence

Frank Gehry’s first New York building, the highly anticipated InterActiveCorp (IAC) Headquarters, has been likened to the flowing pleats of a skirt, or the billowing sails of a ship floating along the Hudson River. The 10-story building near the Chelsea Piers Sports Center has fans and critics wondering what it says about the direction of the architect’s work. Meanwhile, the client is thriving and finds its own creative enterprises stimulated by the unique plan of its new facility.

IAC is an electronic and new-media conglomerate that includes the Home Shopping Network and more than 60 Web-oriented brands, such as Ticketmaster, Expedia, Lending Tree, Citysearch, and Match.com. The new IAC Building’s dynamic form reflects the aggregation of these diversified brands under one roof. STUDIOS Architecture’s interior design makes clever use of customized, 120-degree workstations that stretch out across the irregular floor plates, folding into the unusual spaces created by the building’s fluctuating envelope. Contrasting the ethereal palette of the curtain wall, STUDIOS punctuated the muted interior spaces with incidents of color, developing an eclectic aesthetic to suit the client.

IAC is among a number of forces stoking the revitalization of the West Chelsea neighborhood. Opening up to its new neighbors, the ground floor of the IAC is a “living room” space for the community. Galleries and nonprofit organizations host events in the lobby, which boasts one of the world’s largest HD-quality rear projection screens.

Gehry may not have stamped his long-awaited signature onto the New York skyline, yet with IAC he has created a building that brings identity to a neighborhood in flux and to a corporation whose distinct entities can now function as a more effective conglomerate.