A New Index for Starchitect Porn Lovers

For those of us who never tire of drooling over starchitecture porn – those pricey buildings designed by brand-name architects that we can’t afford – there’s a new index to feed our voyeuristic obsession. As part of a recent expansion of its numerous barometers of the city’s real estate fever, CityRealty has begun indexing condo prices in buildings designed by starchitects, including Annabelle Selldorf, Richard Meier, Robert A.M. Stern, Jean Nouvel and many more.

And guess what? Condos designed by world-famous architects, who charge a lot of money for their services, cost much more than condos designed by some off-the-rack outfit from Hoboken. To wit, according to CityRealty: Starchitect Condos cost $3,052 per square foot, considerably more than the “blue chip” CityRealty 100 condos at $2,685, and Downtown Condos at $2,407 per square foot. Better yet, prices in the Starchitect Index have risen 4.9 percent in the past year and 39.1 percent in the past five years.

A mere 15 starchitects account for the 37 existing buildings tracked by CityRealty. But with new additions in the pipeline from Nouvel, Renzo Piano and the late Zaha Hadid, we can expect the numbers to get even more drool-worthy in the not-too-distant future.