I am so sorry that Frank Gehry compared his building to a bride. Talk about a comment that’s going to come back and bite you in the ass. "When we were studying Brooklyn, we happened upon a wedding, a real Brooklyn wedding," he told the crowd at the high-security press conference on Thursday. “And we decided that Miss Brooklyn was a bride.”
I don’t think he did himself any favors with that metaphor. (Brooklyn wants a divorce from Ratner, the marriage is annulled, the honeymoon is over…)
Gehry showed off the latest renderings in a large third-floor space in the Atlantic Center.
Miss Brooklyn is a curvy aluminum-clad
tower, with a 120-foot glass-walled atrium called “the Urban Room,” a hotel, office space and condos will occupy the rest of the building.
"She’s a bride with flowing veils," Gehry said. He admitted that maybe he was getting carried away. "But I fell in love with her.” he added.
Full disclosure: I’m a big fan of Frank Gehry’s work. He is an architect I truly admire. In fact, years ago my father and I drove around Venice, California in search of all the Gehry-designed houses. We were on the lookout for chain link fencing – that was always a clue – and Gehry’s own house (above). We particularly loved the beach house he designed for a writer that looks like a lifeguard’s perch (pictured left). I even ate dinner at Rebecca’s, the restaurant he designed in Santa Moncia, with the huge fish mobiles that were inspired by the gefilte fish his grandmother used to make.
When he introduced his "Easy Edges" furniture made out of hockey stick material. I convinced my mother to buy one of the cool glass tables with the bentwood legs.
And Bilbao, I was blown away by that vision in titanium. My husband’s mother and sister even made a pilgrammage to that small Spanish city to see the Gehry-designed Guggenheim there.
Closer to home, Hepcat and I toured the Richard B. Fisher Performing Arts Center at Hepcat’s alma mater, Bard College, in Annandale-on-Hudson, devouring all the interesting details of that building.
So you can imagine that I was excited to hear Gehry was going to be designing a building in Brooklyn. In Brooklyn. As a big Gehry fan, I was thrilled.
But then…
…I began to comprehend what Forest City Ratner had in mind — a basketball stadium, 17 high rise office buildings and condos, a development that would threaten to change the character of Brooklyn and create enormous traffic problems, I began to think that Ratner was using Frank Gehry’s reputation as a way to get people like me to support the project. Ratner, whose first development in Brooklyn — the Atlantic Mall — is an eyesore, has very little credibility in the architecture department. So pulling the Frank Gehry card was inspired, to say the least.
Much as I love Frank Gehry and much as I’d love a Frank Gehry building in Brooklyn, I am not unconditionally in favor of anything Gehry does. A stadium? That’s not the Frank Gehry building I was hoping for.
What I am hoping — perhaps too optimistically — is that the building pressure from the citizens of Brooklyn and groups like Develop Don’t Enjoy and No Land Grab, etc. will force Forest City to modify their ridiculously bloated project into something a lot more appropriate, a lot more contextual.
It sounds like Gehry may be responding to some of the criticism of his project. "The original designs got a little carried away," he admitted at the press conference. But the buildings do have a connection to the texture of the existing buildings."
Then he added: "Yes, the buildings will exist, but we are going to create usable spaces, not awful plazas, [that reflect] the body language of Brooklyn."
I really, really respect the guy. Clearly this is a project close to his heart. What architect doesn’t dream about creating a city from scratch. The trouble is: Brooklyn doesn’t need a city within a city, a skylline within a skyline. It already is a city filled with landmark architecture and one-of-a-kind beauty. It’s just not the right blank canvas for Frank Gehry.
Something has to happen over by the Atlantic Yards. It is a blighted stretch that deserves to be enhanced. But not with a development plan, Gehry or no Gehry, that threatens to harm the quality of life in Brooklyn.
A documentary about Frank Gehry opens today in NYC
Sketches of Frank Gehry
Directed by Sydney Pollack;
directors of photography, George Tiffin, Claudio Rocha and Marcus
Birsel; edited by Karen Schmeer; music by Sorman & Nystrom;
produced by Ultan Guilfoyle; released by Sony Pictures Classics.
Running time: 83 minutes. This film is not rated.
i want brad pitt to design all of brooklyn, then we can be blessed with angelina’s presence here!
Frank should no better
Obviously I meant “know” better, but maybe the problem really is learning to say “no” to a project you suspect won’t permit you to do your best, no matter how much money or personal prestige it brings.
Then again, that’s easier said than done. I’ve never turned down a contract. I’m sure Frank needs his paycheck as much as anyone else. He isn’t Bruce Ratner or Mayor Bloomberg.
I agree that some of Gehry’s work is beautiful and even inspiring. I think the museum at Bilbao will stand the test of time and remain an icon long after many of his other buildings are razed or forgotten.
The man obviously has talent, but he was overreaching in accepting the assignment for Atlantic Yards, the footprint of which is bigger than the WTC site. You don’t “design” neighborhoods. You might “plan” them, but you don’t design them. The superblock is a failed concept, Frank should no better.
What disappoints me most, however, is his condescending attitude toward local residents who are skeptical of the project that will change their quality of life forever – a change they did not ask for, nor have they been consulted since the proposal was announced. His remarks concerning legitimate criticism of his concept seem at once both defensive and elitist. Many of the most vocal critics are architects, urban planners, designers and experienced activists for smart development. He may dismiss armchair pundits like me as uninformed philistines, but he can’t hide from the truth – His design won’t create the vibrant urban space that FCR is promising everyone. It will in fact dampen the revitalization that is already occurring in the area.
We need a catalytic project, not a wholesale recreation of the neighborhood in the image of Jersey City.
Hopefully Frank will see the light. He should be worried about his legacy. This project is the biggest he’s ever tackled, but the results will be far below the standards of his best work.
The whole Ratner proposal is too much, too out-of-scale and too redolent of sweetheart deals. His recent puff-piece mailer was a classic of misdirection-see Park Slope Paper last week for a scathing critique. his figures for economic activity rely on the much-discredited effect of a sports stadium, and have been changed several times anyway.
It is sad that so many have jumped on the Atlantic Yards bandwagon without visualizing what an aesthetic disaster it will be. And the use of eminent domain to finish out his parcels is unconscionable. Please support local groups like DDDB (.com) which are working against it.
On a related topic, I read in PSP that Ratner was a sponser of the PS321 parent’s dance. Had I known of this sooner, I would have worked to persuade them against it.