Governor Carey and Mayor Koch announced yesterday that I. M. Pei, one of the nation's premier architects, had been selected to design the $375 million New York Convention and Exhibition Center scheduled to use on Manhattan's West Side over the next five years as a keystone of efforts to revitalize the city's economy.
They also announced that James S. Polshek, dean of the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture and Planning, who has carried out detailed preliminary planning and cost studies, had been retained to oversee and coordinate the architectural design work by I.M. Pei & Partners and an associate minority firm, the Lewis‐Turner Partnership of New York City.
Knowledgeable architectural experts hailed the selection of Mr. Pei, saying signaled a commitment by state and city officials to a quality design for the convention center despite what are expected to be strictly enforced design and construction schedules and cost controls.
Design ‘Exciting Challenge’
In announcing the selection, Governor Carey said it would “insure that the convention center will be a world‐renowned building.” Mr. Pei was in China yesterday and could not be reached for comment, but one architectural expert who talked to him last week about his impending selection said:
“He feels it's going to be an exciting challenge to design a building within the limits that have already been placed on the job. It's not going to be a weird, fantastic building — there is neither the time nor the room in the budget for that — but it will probably be a classy building, something better than the usual piece of government‐bureaucratic architecture.”
Emphasizing constraints on costs and the need to keep on schedule, an Urban Development Corporation spokesman, referring to other projects that encountered long delays and vastly exceeded cost estimates, said of the convention center: “It's not going to be another Yankee Stadium or Albany Mall. Time and cost will be absolutely critical.”
Continue reading the main storyMr. Pei, who is to receive his profession's highest accolade‐the Gold Medal of the American Institute of Architectsthis summer, is a 62‐year‐old, Cantonborn exponent of what has come to be known as classical modern architecture, a blend of simple geometric forms with practical functions, employing concrete, glass and steel.
Some of Mr. Pei's recent designs indude the East Building of the National Gallery and the L'Enfant Plaza Development in Washington, the Municipal Administration Center in Dallas and the National Airlines Terminal and the Kips Bay Residential Plaza in New York City.
Though political wrangling and community battles over plans, sites, costs and other features of the convention center have been under way for more than decade, the selection of Mr. Pei followed by little more than three weeks final legislative approval of the project, which is to be financed with bonds floated by the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority and developed jointly by the authority and a söbsidiary of the state's Urban Development Corporation.
State officials said yesterday that design work would begin promptly and that construction of the 1.8‐million‐squarefoot facility‐containing one exhibit hall of 350,000 square feet, two more of 200,000 feet each, numerous meeting rooms, restaurants, commercial shopping . areas and large amounts of parking space would begin in mid‐1980.
The site is a 37‐acre tract of Penn Central freight yards bounded by West 34th and 39th Streets and 11th and 12th Avenues.
State officials estimate that the center, opening in 1984, could attract more than 700,000 tourists a year and create more than 18,000 permanent jobs. They stressed a need to make the center attractive to visitors even when conventions were not in session.
Two other finalists in the yearlong competition for the job awarded to Mr. Pei were Philip Johnson and a grouping that included David, Brody Associates and Gruzen & Partners. Eighteen architects were considered by a panel appointed last year by Mayor Koch.
The spokesman for the Urban Development Corporation, Michelle de Milly, said that Mr. Pei's firm, I.M. Pei & Partners, would be paid a flat fee, as opposed to percentage of the construction costs: The fee, she said, has not been specified, though a total of $6 million has been earmarked for design and engineering costs.
The Lewis‐Turner Partnership chosen to work in association with Mr. Pei's firm had considerable experience in rehabilitating old buildings and landmark brownstones, and had drawn up the design for pedestrian mall and shopping arcade on 125th Street in Harlem.
Reached in Providence, R.I., yesterday, Mr: Polshek, the project coordinator, whose preliminary studies outlined the parameters of size, cost and other considerations, said he would serve as “a kind of architectural ombudsman” who would seek to insure that design and construction work conformed to the general outlines and cost specifications of his pro‐I gram.
Such programs are customarily written for major corporate or municipal construction projects to project and control schedules and costs. Sources familiar with Mr. Poishek's program for the convention center, however, described it as considerably more detailed than usual.
“He virtually designed the convention center,” said one source. “The program tells just how many tons of concrete will be used, how much glass, the size of the exhibition halls, even how many bathrooms there will be. The final design will be I.M. Pei's, and the program will not limit him, but it will mean no false starts, no unbuildable designs, and it will be realistic about costs.”
Another source close to Mr. Pei described the program as “political: as much as architectural.” and said: “The challenge will be how to design it without violating all the restrictions that have already been placed on him. Pei will be limited to a certain extent, but not to a point where he was unwilling to do it. He feels the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.
“He'll Come in with a respectable building. That's why they picked him. They want a a classy building that will be better than most cities’ convention centers, but they can't do anything crazy,
Ithey can't go over the budget and they have to get it done fast — very fast‐because time is the money.”
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