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March 8, 2008
A Portrait of the Architect as Artist: Frank Gehry in New York
Critical Cities (via Core77)
Gehry’s centerpiece skyscraper of the Yards, the unfortunately named “Miss Brooklyn”, is a “curvaceous” glass tower (of frosted glass perhaps?) and seems the most formally interesting of the 16 skyscrapers. Many of the other towers appear to be simply conventional high-rise condo boxes with a jaunty angle here and there. While Gehry has mastered the singular iconic building, it is hard to see how this will translate to urbanism on such a scale. The designs thus far suggest no radical rethinking of urban space and little thinking about the effects on the existing local community. The increased population density, combined with the absence of adequate parking, schools, hospitals or other social services to service such a huge influx of people, all confirm that the proposed Yards is an exercise in simply maximizing profit by squeezing in as many luxury apartments as possible.While Ratner’s basketball arena and the promise of NBA in Brooklyn is the sweetener to win over the local African-American community, commissioning starchitect Gehry seems to be a ploy to win over the design-conscious local gentrifiers. The website for the Atlantic Yards interestingly states the following for Gehry’s biography: “Born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1929, Mr. Gehry and his family moved to California after living in Toronto, Canada, until he was 18.” The born-in-Brooklyn connection seems less an honest mistake than a fabrication designed to further make the Gehry design palatable to the local community. However, judging from the strong local opposition to the project (which even includes local anti-Gehry graffiti at the site), the ploy seems to have failed, and may yet damage the reputation of the rumpled genius, at least in Brooklyn.
Posted by amy at March 8, 2008 10:00 AM