Architecture As Exhibitionism? A Verdict On Standard Hotel Peep Shows

Since opening last summer, visitors to the High Line have been enjoying more than just quaint prairie grass. More specifically, they've gotten a glimpse of T&A — and that's not tulips and acorns — from guests of New York's Standard Hotel.

The swanktastic hotel straddles the entire above-street level park in the Meatpacking District. Last summer, several incidents of nudity and sex acts were reportedly on view from the High Line.

But does the sleek, seemingly transparent design of the building lend itself to these very public performances?

Paul Goldberger, Pulitzer-Prize-winning architecture critic for The New Yorker, plays down the nudity. Take a tour of Goldberger on the High Line, here.

He says most glass buildings are "positioned in such a way that no one can really see into them really well." As the slew of online photos suggest, that standard doesn't apply to The Standard. "It’s positioned for people to look," Goldberger says.

"One or two things happened," he says, that the Hotel has been "brilliantly leveraging for maximum publicity."

Watch the video for more.