1 · POSITION
The Basel practice — Tate Modern, the Beijing stadium, the Elbphilharmonie — designed PUBLIC on the Lower East Side for Ian Schrager, LHL-P-011. It is LHL-112 in the register.
2 · WHY THEY ARE IN THE LIBRARY
PUBLIC was an argument in built form: that the cost of luxury hospitality sits in the rituals rather than the fabric, and that removing the rituals while keeping the fabric produces something new. The escalators, the absent front desk and the deliberate refusal of the concierge were the point. It is the clearest instance in the register of architects being hired to make a commercial thesis physical.
3 · WHAT THIS MODEL DOES NOT SOLVE
The thesis was contested at once and remains so: what PUBLIC removed is what a good deal of the trade believes it is selling. The Library records the argument rather than its verdict, and notes that the model has been widely borrowed at lower prices and rarely at this one.