photography: Sacha Maric @sacha_maric
“My favorite class was a walking tour of New York City and I loved learning about all of the details of the amazing architectural buildings throughout the city and then watching how people engaged and interacted with those spaces”
Framing Matthew Foley's (@mjfiii) unique perspective on NYC. Native Advertising living on his, DETAILS', and COACH's Web and Social Channels.
Sheets of rain fall outside but you wouldn’t know it standing in the brilliant, pristine underground concourse of One World Trade in lower Manhattan. The icy spikes of Matthew Foley’s signature peroxide hair are a counterpoint to the matte white smoothness of the building’s subterranean buttresses where the deluge outside may as well be in another time zone. You imagine this is just the kind of offhand but compelling contrast he would snap were he behind the camera today. The fashion consultant and instagram magnet is used to drowning out noise, actual and visual, when he is snapping pictures and posting them on his instagram @mjfiii where his distinctly sharp point of view, as he travels the city and the world, have garnered him 75k followers and the attention of the fashion and architecture worlds. The Columbia grad says his first love was architecture. He grew up in DC around the city’s underrated architecture gems and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Falling Water in Pennsylvania where with his family led him to New York to study up town.
“My favorite class was a walking tour of New York City and I loved learning about all of the details of the amazing architectural buildings throughout the city and then watching how people engaged and interacted with those spaces,” he remembers. At any given hour you can find Foley in any neighborhood from Chelsea to Chinatown where he lives, moving with the rhythm of the city and catching it when it least expects.
When the rain lets up we head to 4 Cooper Square, the undulating Tom Mayne-designed academic building for the esteemed arts and engineering school, Cooper Union. Equal parts rigor and fun, the space feels similar to the work Foley does, though he considers what he does with his pictures anything but. “It’s not work, it’s totally joy,” he maintains. In down time you can catch Foley holding up his iphone, squinting in sudden and full concentration, trying to get the image he has decided in that instant is not worth missing. “When I see something that I want to capture, I try to make it right,” he says, explaining the laser focus that hones in on a possible frame that most would miss.
“I find a lot of comfort in mid-century modern architecture, like the Seagram Building and Lever House,” he lists as some of his favorite spots in the city. The constant rebuild and construction of New York can be exhausting so Foley does take solace in things staying the same, like his favorite neighborhood cafe, Dimes, situated on a quiet stretch of Canal Street. He is there every morning with a breakfast sandwich, with or without bread depending on how healthy he wants to be. The carefully unadorned decor speaks to the fresh and simple food that bring Foley and other art and fashion folks there on the regular. He lives around the corner on Ludlow and admits he cant start his day without a visit. Which is to say, no matter how much neighborhood hopping one does, you eventually have to settle on one, and Foley could do worse than this calm oasis within Chinatown’s clamor.
Always on the hunt for the next great picture to share, Foley is heading uptown for a gallery opening and a book signing at Dover Street Market that night which should provide ample material, but you can only find something if you keep your eyes open he figures, like some kind of instagram koan. “My biggest thing is to just look up and you can be surprised.”
Q: What architect do you love right now?
A: I love how Calatrava is so true to himself and does something that’s so signature and I love the use of materials as well as light and I really liked the interplay between the material.
Q: What’s your favorite view in the city?
A: One of them would have to be in MoMA Tower, which is the apartment building above MoMA. It was built by Philip Johnson and the residents have access to this terrace that overlooks the sculpture garden of MoMA and it’s very special.
Q: When you’re moving around town this time of year what kind of wardrobe works best for you?
A: I’ve always loved the start of the school year, change of the seasons, sort of throw on a sweater again and I really loved sort of the structure and the tailoring of the overcoat. That’s something I could relate to because that’s sort of my signature.
Q: Where outside of New York have you loved?
A: Vancouver and Chicago. One of my friends lives right on Lakeshore Drive and I did an event at The Museum of Contemporary Art, which is a beautiful post-modern ode to modernism and I love the simplicity and the light in the space.
Q: What drew you to architecture in the first place?
A: I’ve always loved architecture since I was a child. When I was in high school, I fell in love with The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. Which was long and kind of ridiculous, but at the time it was just life changing.