Proposed luxury condos in New York celebrate the hipster steampunk movement.
I don’t know if you can really call ‘steampunk’ a movement, since it has basically been hanging around for years without ever becoming mainstream, but the developers of 15 Renwick, in downtown Manhattan believe in the style enough to brand their entire building as ‘steampunk’.
The Victorian-obsessed style will be evident in everything from the walnut floors to the industrial appliances. The units (condos, townhouses, and penthouses) are selling at prices from $1.9 million to $10.5 million. The whole point of the building is to cater to the creative, artistic set of Manhattanites, but at that price the only people who can afford it are people who have already sold out to the man.
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Say what you will about steampunk, but while I find the artistic style interesting, I also find it sort of limiting. Designing an entire building around one particular style is never a good idea, and I foresee a lot of costly renovations in the future when people realize they don’t want to live in some dark Dickensian fairy tale.
