New York: What to See & Do: Architecture: 40 Mercer St.

40 Mercer St.

Architecture lovers should be sure to check out 40 Mercer Street, a superluxury condo collaboration between André Balazs and Jean Nouvel at the corner of Grand Street, in SoHo. With his sparkling grid of colorless, blue and red glass panes, Nouvel has pushed the curtain wall to a new level of transparent beauty. And he’s done this while respecting the scale of the surrounding cast-iron buildings and paying a nod to the architectural strategies of Jean Prouvé and Richard Neutra. The enormous floor-to-ceiling panes retract electronically, and a clever louver system provides shade and privacy to the spectacularly glazed penthouse apartments.