Bruce Ratner has decided to remove Frank Gehry as the architect of the Nets Arena for his Atlantic Yards Project. Instead he has selected Ellerbe Becket, a Kansas City, MO architect, whose design will cost $200 million less than the Gehry project, which was going to cost $1 billion. For in-depth analysis go to Atlantic Yards Report.
2 thoughts on “Ratner Drops Gehry Design; New Stadium Design by Ellerbe Becket”
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Welcome to second rate Brooklyn. This new design is a piece of shit, with a third rate architect. With Gehry I would have been proud to live in Brooklyn, but this new design makes me cringe and want to go back to Jersey.
Don’t listen to complainers — this is great news for Brooklyn. First of all, Frank Gehry is not really an architect, but an architectural stylist. His buildings defy the dictum of good design that “form forever follows function.” They aren’t about shelter, logic, noble simplicity or proportion, but about promoting the Gehry brand and bank account. That’s why they tend to look alike — different city, same Gehry. He piles on scraps of sheet metal and glass until he gets the provocative sculptural look he likes, then tells the client that its either this or mediocrity.
So Bruce Ratner chooses a less expensive design for the Nets Arena by Ellerbe Becket of Kansas City, an architectural firm nobody on the East Coast ever heard of. Label conscious New Yorkers automatically assume the stadium will look like some backwoods county fair pavilion. Wrong. In fact, the new design is actually pretty good. First of all, it doesn’t overwhelm surroundings the way Gehry’s fountain of mangled materials would. Even the colors are respectful of Brooklyn, specifically its brick base and brown roof evocative of brownstone townhouses. The stadium won’t be about bombast, but about basketball, and that’s a vast improvement over the first proposal. And fans can rejoice about one feature in particular — unlike typical Gehry buildings, the roof won’t leak on their heads.