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January 17, 2006
Where Old and New Collide
The Metropolis review of the new addition at the architecture school at Pratt Institute, by Fred A. Bernstein, references Frank Gehry's suggestion to Bruce Ratner to bring other architects on board and examines how different styles of architecture not only can co-exist, but make for a more vital urban environment.
When Frank Gehry was hired to design the vast Atlantic Yards complex in Brooklyn, he tried to persuade developer Bruce Ratner to assign parts of the project to other architects. Gehry told me he was worried that by handling the entire job himself he would deprive Brooklynites of the variety of styles that makes cities generally (and their borough in particular) vital. Some kinds of architecture, he seemed to say by asking Ratner for help, are most effective when forced to coexist with other kinds of architecture.
So far Gehry hasn't convinced Ratner to farm out parts of Brooklyn's Atlantic Yards. But proof of the wisdom of his approach to urbanism is visible just a mile away, where a new building for the architecture school at Pratt Institute opened last year. Steven Holl's 22,500-square-foot light box, known as Higgins Hall, slips cleanly between a pair of elaborate nineteenth-century buildings. Holl's glowing object would have looked out of place (even otherworldly) on an empty lot. Paradoxically it seems right at home sharing a block front with the two Victorian-era structures, which have themselves been smartly updated by Rogers Marvel Architects (who were also architects of record for the Holl addition).
Posted by lumi at January 17, 2006 7:05 AM