Elia Zenghelis, Zoe Zenghelis

Hotel Sphinx Project, New York, New York

1975–1976

Synthetic polymer paint and ink on paper

Not on view

Elia and Zoe Zenghelis designed the Hotel Sphinx for Times Square, at the intersection of Broadway and Seventh Avenue, that was included in Rem Koolhaas's book, Delirious New York. It proposed an urban hotel as a model for mass housing. Each physical part of the hotel as sphinx accommodates different programmatic functions: the legs contain escalators ascending to theaters, auditoriums, and ballrooms; the two towers of the tail contain studio apartments; the neck contains social clubs; the head is dedicated to relaxation and sports; and the spine houses hotel rooms, apartments, and villas with terraced gardens. Manhattan was intended to function as an extended lobby providing all possible amenities, and, likewise, the ground floor and mezzanine were designed to draw in the city and to take on the character of the Times Square area, a notoriously seedy neighborhood in the 1970s.

Publication excerpt from

an essay by Bevin Cline and Tina di Carlo, in Terence Riley, ed., The Changing of the Avant-Garde: Visionary Architectural Drawings from the Howard Gilman Collection, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2002, p. 142.

Medium Synthetic polymer paint and ink on paper
Dimensions 18 3/8 x 22" (46.7 x 55.9 cm)
Credit Gift of The Howard Gilman Foundation
Object number 1317.2000
Department Architecture & Design

Explore more

Installation views

We have identified this work in the following photos from our exhibition history.

How we identified these works
In 2018–19, MoMA collaborated with Google Arts & Culture Lab on a project using machine learning to identify artworks in installation photos. That project has concluded, and works are now being identified by MoMA staff.

If you notice an error, please contact us at [email protected].
Licensing
To reproduce installation views, please contact Art Resource (publication in North America) or Scala Archives (publication in all other geographic locations). You will need to include the object identification number found in the caption.
Feedback
This record is a work in progress. If you have additional information or spotted an error, please send feedback to [email protected].

Licensing

Artwork or archival images

If you would like to reproduce an image of a work of art in MoMA's collection, or an image of a MoMA publication or archival material (including installation views, checklists, and press releases), please contact Art Resource (publication in North America) or Scala Archives (publication in all other geographic locations).

Audio and film clips

MoMA licenses archival audio and select out of copyright film clips from our film collection. At this time, MoMA produced video cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. All requests to license archival audio or out of copyright film clips should be addressed to Scala Archives at [email protected]. Motion picture film stills cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. For access to motion picture film stills for research purposes, please contact the Film Study Center at [email protected]. For more information about film loans and our Circulating Film and Video Library, please visit Circulating Film and Video Library.

Text from a publication or the archives

If you would like to reproduce text from a MoMA publication, please email [email protected]. If you would like to publish text from MoMA's archival materials, please fill out this permission form and send to [email protected].

Feedback

This record is a work in progress. If you have additional information or spotted an error, please fill out this feedback form.