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# This Is Your Chance to Explore Cool Modernist Apartments in NYC
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/this-is-your-chance-to-explore-cool-modernist-apartments-in-nyc/
- Published: 2013-09-27T20:19:29.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:45:01.000Z
- Description: Starting tomorrow, the public is being invited into some of the most intriguing modernist private residences in New York City.
- Author: Allison Meier
- Tags: Art, Architecture, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 06:59 (2012, 2013, part 2)

![The Skyhouse (photograph by Eric Laignel)](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2013/09/skyhouselivingroom.jpg)

The Skyhouse (photograph by Eric Laignel)

Starting tomorrow, the public is being invited into some of the most intriguing modernist private residences in New York City. Part of [City Modern](http://citymodernnyc.com/index.html?ref=hyperallergic.com#.UkW4kGTXhEI), a two-week architectural event that is a collaboration between *Dwell* and *New York* magazine, the home tours will take places around Cobble Hill in Brooklyn and Lower Manhattan, and will surely incite some major real estate envy. City Modern also includes discussions with high-profile members of the modernist and contemporary design and architecture world, including architect David Rockwell, Paola Antonelli of MoMA, and designer Jonathan Adler.

But what’s really unique are [the home tours](http://citymodernnyc.com/homeTours.html?ref=hyperallergic.com#.UkW5yGTXhEI), with this Saturday devoted to Manhattan and then Sunday to Brooklyn. Ever wanted to see David Salle’s Fort Greene complex, or a skyscraper residence with an 80-foot slide? Well unless you have connections, this is likely your chance. And a chance to look at how modern architecture has worked its was into Brooklyn, a more recent center for contemporary transformations of historic spaces.

Here are five homes that look especially inviting:

## Salle Residence

![Inside the Salle Residence (courtesy City Modern)](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2013/09/davidsalle01.jpg)

Inside the Salle Residence (courtesy City Modern)

Artist David Salle’s Fort Greene home is a behemoth, stretching between two buildings — one a former Masonic temple — he bought in a run down state in the 1990s. Designer Christian Hubert helped merge them into one 10,000-square-foot compound that sprawls over half a city block, including of course a massive studio for his often-massive paintings.

## Flavor Paper Pad

![The Flavor Paper living room (with quite the brass instrument wall sculpture) (courtesy SKYLAB)](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2013/09/flavorpaperpad.jpg)

The Flavor Paper living room (with quite the brass instrument black hole wall sculpture) (courtesy SKYLAB)

The [Flavor Paper Pad](http://citymodernnyc.com/tours/flavorpaper.html?ref=hyperallergic.com#.UkWvXmTXhEI) on Pacific Street in Brooklyn isn’t quite the stationary confectionary hang out you might expect from its name, but is instead a former 16,000-square-foot parking garage that’s been redesigned by architect Jeff Kovel of Skylab Architecture into a home and an outpost of wallpaper company Flavor Paper. And this is not your standard roll-out florals, but wallpaper of the “bespoke” variety, showcased on “leather-clad cabinetry and ceilings to furry bedroom walls.” But personally, I’d go for the rooftop meadow, because that’s ridiculous.

## Skyhouse

![Skyhouse Slide (photograph by Eric Laignel)](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2013/09/slidetownhouse.jpg)

Skyhouse Slide (photograph by Eric Laignel)

Warning: this is probably the most likely home tour to inspire deep insecure loathing for your own hovel. The [Skyhouse](http://citymodernnyc.com/tours/skyhouse.html?ref=hyperallergic.com#.UkWuSWTXhEI) is as lofty as it sounds. A collaboration between architect David Hotson and interior designer Ghislaine Viñas, the penthouse takes over four stories that were once vacant at the top of a 19th century Manhattan skyscraper. And it even has its own *slide*, which loops 80-feet in polished steel through the place. And if that isn’t enough, apparently its guest bedroom shower “captures the glow of the Chrysler Building.”

## Fractal Pad

![Living room of the Fractal Pad (courtesy Architecture in Formation)](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2013/09/fractalpad.jpg)

Living room of the Fractal Pad (courtesy Architecture in Formation)

For the [Fractal Pad](http://citymodernnyc.com/tours/fractalpad.html?ref=hyperallergic.com#.UkWuRGTXhEI), Architect Matthew Bremer of Architecture in Formation took fractal geometry as inspiration, as well as Plato’s Cave, to create something that would be a retreat. It only has one side with windows, and video artist Jeffrey Wells designed an electronic wall that has projections of windows on the other side. That seems a little disorienting and claustrophobic, but maybe it’s on the comforting side of modernist caves.

## Dean Street Townhouse

![Dean Street Townhouse (photograph by Frank Oudeman)](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2013/09/deanstreethome.jpg)

Dean Street Townhouse (photograph by Frank Oudeman)

While it might not be as ostentatious as other homes on this list, the [Dean Street Townhouse](http://citymodernnyc.com/tours/deanstmodern.html?ref=hyperallergic.com#.UkZLN2TXjE0) was designed by architect Clay Miller of Bergen Street Studio in a building that was once deemed inhospitable. However, the landmarked Brooklyn home now has 4,600 of quite livable space open to the garden and with a “green wall” for even more nature, which I presume means a wall covered in flourishing plants. Careful if you have allergies, although it seems plenty airy in the townhouse.

[City Modern](http://citymodernnyc.com/index.html?ref=hyperallergic.com#.UkW4kGTXhEI) *opens tonight and will run until October 4 throughout New York City.*