Since cheer is hard to come by these days, I grabbed this story by the horns and ran with it – I found its subject so utterly clever and amusing.

Hungarian artist and architect Andi Schmied spent some of the last years exploring New York City from above. During an artist residency in NYC she realized that the city can be viewed from above publicly only from three locations, the Empire State Building, the Rockefeller Center and ONE World Trade Center.

Before you knew it, she had taken on the persona of an apartment-hunting Hungarian billionaire. Or the wife of one, to be precise. During the real-estate agent guided tours of over thirty exclusive high-rise properties, she photographed the views (as well as the interior of these decadent abodes,) and recorded the sales pitches.

To get to that point she had to engage in quite a bit of cloak and dagger maneuvers. A friend in Hungary posed as the excessively rich husband including a designated website of his business etc; her wardrobe and make-up were changed to play the role. With her background “checked” and her passport inspected, she sailed through guarded sky-scrapers, fawned over by the sales fleet.

The results can be seen in a book, recently published, that is about much more than getting a glimpse of New York from above, usually reserved for the privileged few.

Private Views: A high-rise panorama of Manhattan can be explored here.

“The skyscrapers visited by Schmied were carefully selected due to their representation of a new type of luxury. Those selected for their architectural interest include the MOMA Expansion Tower by Jean Nouvel, Gehry Tower, Jenga Tower, and 432 Park Avenue. Among the buildings visited for political reasons were the Trump Tower or Time Warner Centre, where recently more than a dozen owners have gone to prison, after anonymously buying an apartment through shell companies. For buildings of economic interest, Schmied visited 220 Central Park South, where its penthouse duplex has been sold for a record sales price. Other buildings selected ranged from reconstructed early American skyscrapers to luxury condos (such as the Woolworth Tower Residences, or Pine Street 70) and penthouse suites for sale within luxury hotels (such as the Four Seasons, Ritz Carlton and the Baccarat).”

The photographs and conversations with the sales personell are interspersed with essays that discuss the issue of “Private Views,” including the problem with the shadows these buildings cast, and ghost apartments used for money laundering or speculation. Essay contributors include Peter Noever, Anthony Vidler, feminist architecture collaborative, Sam Stein, Sharon Zukin, SITU Studio, Sara Bernat, Jack Self, Ava Lynam, and others.

Marvelous idea, smart execution, hope she gets the attention she deserves!

Schmied’s previous projects focused on architectural idiosyncrasies as well. A book depicting a quasi ghost town in China, near Beijing, allowed a glance into a world usually closed off to us. Jing Jin City contained photographs, essays and renderings of a luxury resort town that has remained largely unoccupied since construction began in 2002.

“The city’s four thousand mansions exist in various stages of incompletion, set around a Hyatt Regency Resort Spa, horse racing track, and 18-hole golf course. The place is maintained by a small army of caretakers who also make up most of its permanent population. Lacking tasks to complete, they spend their time wandering the streets, occupying the homes they are meant to guard, building constructions in living rooms, and adapting the city to their needs.”

I figured I’d match Schmied’s views of Manhattan from above, which can be found here, with my photographs coming from the other direction, looking up, like the rest of us foot soldiers. I’ll take the woman on the street gig any time over the dame in the tower scenario….. for the company alone.

And what better music for the ravages of capitalism than the Drei Groschen Oper…..