Apparently,

many viewers and reviewers, 

 and from today visitors from the public, are asking the same question, 'what is it?' Thomas Heatherwick’s new copper-colored structure at New York City’s Hudson Yards exists somewhere between a building and a pavilion, yet is classified by neither title, 

  the open-air structure, which is temporarily nicknamed as “Vessel,” is a maze of 154 crossing stairwells and 80 landings that combine to form a honeycomb-like shape,

 Heatherwick Studio group leader and partner Stuart Wood explains, “It’s not a building, it’s not a sculpture, it’s not an artwork, and yet it has scale and relevance to all of those typologies… In a way, we’re thinking of this as a piece of furniture. Its ongoing use will evolve, quite naturally.”

the structure is narrow at the bottom to avoid a large footprint, and expands to a width of 150 feet wide at the top, it opened yesterday alongside a plaza and gardens and phase one of the surrounding complex’s retail and entertainment, You can reserve free timed tickets to climb the structure on Hudson Yard’s website starting today, I am guessing they will sell quickly so do not be late in applying, all photographs by Michael Moran for Related Companies.