View of HL23 as designed by Neil Denari. Courtesy HL23/Copyright Hayes Davidson

NEW YORK.- Known for his bold architectural and urban concepts, Los Angeles-based architect Neil Denari is helping to transform New York with the design of his first freestanding building, called HL23 and located on 23rd Street abutting the High Line elevated railway bed. The exhibition brings together models, full-scale building sections, and computer renderings illustrating the design and construction of HL23. Historic and contemporary images of the High Line, which is itself being transformed from an abandoned freight transport line into one of the nation’s most innovative public parks, demonstrates the striking contrast between New York’s industrial past and the transformation of this Chelsea neighborhood into a global center of art and culture.

Neil M. Denari Architects is a Los Angeles based office dedicated to exploring the worlds of architecture, design, urbanism, and global cultural phenomenon. We have been working across multiple continents since 1988, designing at all scales for a variety of clients and conditions. We seek out projects that demand new and innovative solutions to the complex issues facing the world today. Whether in a piece of furniture or in an urban design plan, our ambitions always are to materialize these questions in a powerful, evocative, and functional way. The work of the office has become, over the last 10 years, an influential force in the culture of contemporary architecture. Today, we continue to develop through new projects our repertoire of design possibilities. NMDA's commitment to design innovation and construction excellence has been demonstrated in award winning projects such as l.a. Eyeworks, the Endeavor Talent Agency, and in our first completed Japanese project, the Mitsubishi Bank branch in central Shibuya, Tokyo.

Long considered to be one of the pioneers of the use of computers in architectural design and visualization, NMDA has produced a body of work that has fused the physical and the graphic worlds in unpredecented ways. From our groundbreaking installation in Tokyo's Gallery MA in 1996 to our current explorations, we have relentlessly pursued the development of "cultural ergonomics", i.e. those forms that "fit" our contemporary life.

Neil Denari has been at the forefront of architecture and design for the last 20 years. Prior to launching NMDA, he lived and worked in New York from 1983-87 where his work explored the technical and formal impact of technology on architecture. While there, he worked as a senior designer at James Stewart Polshek and Partners and exhibited his work at numerous museums and galleries. He studied at the University of Houston (B Arch 1980) and Harvard University (M Arch 1982). Denari moved to Los Angeles in 1988 and began NMDA. In 2002, he was given both the Richard Recchia Award and the Samuel F.B. Morse Medal for architecture from the National Academy of Design in New York for distinguished work in the field. Denari is the author of two bestselling books, Interrupted Projections (TOTO 1996) and Gyroscopic Horizons (Princeton 1999). He is a registered architect in New York and California and from 1997-2001, was the Director of SCI-Arc, the Southern California Institute of Architecture. He has taught at various schools including Columbia University, the Bartlett, SIT Tokyo, and UT Arlington. Neil Denari holds the position of Professor-in-Residence in the Architecture and Urban Design department at UCLA.

Master bedroom. Courtesy HL23/Copyright Hayes Davidson.