Gehry in Brooklyn

[boilerplater]

Well, here is an example from Edinburgh, Scotland, albeit dating from 1766:
http://www.aboutscotland.com/edin/newtown.html
I have some pics of the "New Town" from my visit. I'll have to post sometime. It has a lot of crescents surrounding enclosed parks. A Lord Provost Drummond seems to have acted as the "planner" in this case in ordering the competition and getting funding. OK, an example from 239 years ago...weak, I know. Well, wasn't Battery Park City the result of a design competition? How about those Biennale architecture schemes that European cities often do? Paris had a competion for Parc LaVillette, which resulted in the new form of park they were looking for, if not a great urban space. Hmm, yeah, good examples are quite rare. Maybe competitions work better for memorials.

OT: I had a poster of that scene from Metropolis in college!
Does that Steiner building remind you of a turtle, or an elephant?

[ablarc]

As Theophilus White wrote when Penn considered trearing down (what is now) the architecture library: I'd wish to experience the new building before the university tears down the old one.

Who would the new building have been by?

And who was the old building by?

[jordanb]

Who would the new building have been by?

And who was the old building by?

Yes if the new building is by a GENIUS and the old building was by a non-genius or a former GENIUS who fell out of style, nock that piece of trash down!

[Gedunker]

Who would the new building have been by?

And who was the old building by?

Paul P. Cret may have been considered for the replacement library (I need to do more research in my old notes to verify...although White wrote quite a bit about Cret, which is why I am attributing it to him). Frank Furness designed the subject library.

[ablarc]

Paul P. Cret may have been considered for the replacement library...Frank Furness designed the subject library.

That's a battle of old-time superstars. Furness the steamhammer innovator and pre-Raphaelite illuminationist vs. Paul Cret, the late Beaux-Arts progressive with Modernist leanings --kind of an American Albert Speer. Incidentally, Louis Kahn worked for him; he probably would have been involved in this project.

That explains why Kahn pointed Modernist architecture back to the future.

[Gedunker]

Furness' Pennsylvania Academy is one of my favorite buildings -- the entry with the steps leading up to the main exhibition space -- the audible anticipation of arriving on a higher plane -- fantastic.

That Kahn was in Cret's attelier shouldn't surprise me, but it does.

I understand the comparison to Speer in that both saw the need for the monumental in public architecture and engineering, but the similarity ends there, IMO.

[ablarc]

I understand the comparison to Speer in that both saw the need for the monumental in public architecture and engineering, but the similarity ends there, IMO.

They both did stripped classicism, a style that some in the US refer to as New Deal Classicism. The exterior of Cret's Folger Library on Capitol Hill (which Kahn is known to have worked on) could easily be included in an illustrated article on Albert Speer without anyone batting an eyelash.

Cret's Folger Library:





http://www.cyburbia.org/forums/showthread.php?t=18631

[jaws]

Well as it turns out nobody thought this was a good idea, not even Frank Gehry.

Gehry: My design was ‘horrible’
Architect tinkers to reduce impact of Atlantic Yards


Before unveiling his latest tweaks for Atlantic Yards this week, architect Frank Gehry waved at an old acquaintance in the fourth row: Patti Hagan of Develop—Don’t Destroy Brooklyn. Giving a wide grin, Gehry accepted an invite to tour Prospect Heights with the longtime Atlantic Yards opponent. “I think Bruce Ratner will fire me,” Gehry joked.

Genevieve Christy


By Ariella Cohen
The Brooklyn Papers

Even world-renowned architect Frank Gehry thinks his design for the Atlantic Yards project — a scheme so massive that even its supporters grumbled after it was unveiled in July — was “horrible.”

Gehry made the stunning admission on Tuesday, as he showed off new details of his design for a 19,000-seat basketball arena, 7,300 units of housing and nearly two million square feet of commercial and office space atop 24 acres in the heart of Brooklyn.

Gehry’s lighting-fast PowerPoint presentation, made at an American Institute of Architects forum, was full of small details, but avoided the Big Picture.

The new design for the $3.5-billion project remains pretty much like its predecessor — minus the architect’s trademark bling. It’s now a bit softer, more inviting, greener and even features a marsh-like pond.

“We didn’t want iconic warfare between 20 buildings,” he said. Translating from Architectese, Gehry means that the glitzy, Vegas-like towers he unveiled to widespread rancor will be toned down and re-clad with warmer brick.

The project’s centerpiece — the glass-walled arena for the Brooklyn Nets at the intersection of Flatbush and Atlantic avenues — remains as shiny as ever.

Yet the architect played defense for most of the forum and repeatedly used the word “horrible” to describe how he felt about the earlier design when he saw it splashed all over the front page of the New York Times in July.

It’s no surprise that Gehry is tinkering with the project. Last week, The Brooklyn Papers reported that developer Bruce Ratner had sent his starchitect back to the drafting table.

He promises the next design will not be horrible. Honest.

[TIO]

Pedestrian comment after a first impression.

The birds eye view gives me the impression that the design is mimicking the bevel style of graffiti.

Good give and take in this thread. Thank you!

[jaws]

Unveiled today, the new not-horrible design.


The wooden catapult at the front is presumably for crushing neighborhood resistance.

link: curbed