Jenga Building (56 Leonard Street)

The Swiss architecture firm of Herzog & de Meuron designed a building for 56 Leonard Street in Manhattan that looked like imperfectly stacked blocks. Curbed NY‘s Septembe 15, 2008 story was titled “JENGA! Herzog & de Meuron’s 56 Leonard Revealed.” Jenga is a game involving blocks.
 
56 Leonard—pre-construction—was soon nicknamed the ‘Jenga Tower” or “Jenga Building.”
 
     
Wikipedia: Jenga 
Jenga is a game of physical and mental skill created by Leslie Scott, and currently marketed by Parker Brothers, a division of Hasbro. During the game, players take turns to remove a block from a tower and balance it on top, creating a taller and increasingly unstable structure as the game progresses.
 
Jenga is derived from a Swahili word meaning “to build.”
 
Curbed NY
JENGA! Herzog & de Meuron’s 56 Leonard Revealed
Monday, September 15, 2008, by Joey Arak
To those who say New York’s building boom is coming to an end, well…at least it’s going out with a bang! Last week brought us the reveal of Dutch starchitect Rem Koolhaas’ eagerly-anticipated condo building at 23 East 22nd Street just south of Madison Square Park, and today brings the long-awaited debut of Swiss starchitects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron’s condo tower at 56 Leonard Street in Tribeca. It has been almost a full year since we revealed that Herzog & de Meuron would follow up 40 Bond in New York with their first residential high-rise building, a 57-story project developed by the deep-pocketed Alexico Group at the corner of Leonard and Church Streets.
   
Curbed NY
Floorplan Porn: 56 Leonard Gets in the Game
Monday, September 22, 2008, by Joey Arak
Our nation’s foremost architecture critic, Kanye West, has finally weighed in on Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron’s new Tribeca tower at 56 Leonard Street. Mr. West’s opinion: “GONE BE NIIIICE!!!” Also nice: the first batch of listings have hit the web via Corcoran Sunshine, and perhaps because 140 unique floorplans at once would turn our brains into Swiss cheese, only about two dozen Jenga blocks are represented.
 
Curbed NY
Arrested Development: Collect ‘Em All!
Friday, October 16, 2009, by Joey Arak
Though the credit crunch ended the building boom with so much still left on the boards, starchitecture fans don’t have to go away empty-handed. Unica Home is selling architectural souvenirs of some of the world’s most ambitious stalled skyscrapers, including Tribeca’s very own 56 Leonard Street—Herzog & de Meuron’s Jenga tower. Created by Boym Studio, the mini-towers cost $84 each. But is 56 Leonard really worth it?
 
Urban Splatter
Jenga Building Planned to be Constructed 56 Leonard Street
July 16, 2012
The reason I called this a jenga building was because of all the cantilever bulges coming out of the building. The sides of the building will be completely glass. The construction began in 2007 but was seized due to financial problems during that time. Now with construction booming, hopefully the construction of this building will start again. I will keep you updated with this as it is going to be announced very soon. Prices for the condos will begin at 3.5 million and extend to as far as 33 million. With a 75 foot pool and 12 feet glass doors, this is not an average building. It will be extremely tall at 57 stories!
 
Tribeca Citizen
Here Comes the Jenga Building
10/11/12
At last night’s meeting of Community Board 1′s Tribeca Committee—the rest of the Unofficial Minutes will be done soon—representatives for U.S. Lend Lease, the construction manager for 56 Leonard, the long-stalled-and-now-revived “Jenga Building” at the southwest corner of Church, said that construction could start as early as next week if the permits got lined up. They said that Herzog & de Meuron’s plans have not substantially changed, although the street-level Anish Kapoor sculpture wasn’t in their scope so they couldn’t confirm it was still happening.
 
At 830 feet, the 146 unit, 57-story building will be the tallest in Tribeca.
 
CNET
Blockish ‘Jenga building’ going up in New York
Don’t take a block from the bottom and put it on top. This 60-story deluxe condo would topple all over New York, but it’s set to redefine the skyline.
by Tim Hornyak October 26, 2012 10:01 AM PDT
How would you like to live in a puzzle in the sky? How about right on top of Manhattan?
 
After a long delay, a rather puzzling 60-story condo building in New York’s Tribeca district could soon start becoming a reality. It’s made up of a pile of stacked residential units, a design that earned it the nickname “the Jenga Building” after the 1980s game of wooden blocks.
 
Conceived by Swiss architectural firm Herzog & De Meuron, the 56 Leonard Street project could see completion by spring 2016, according to the Tribeca Citizen.