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September 14, 2009
SHoPing around: "Where'd we leave our ethics?"
Fans For Fair Play
FFFP's inimitable Scott M.X. Turner is most definitely not a SHoPaholic.
Here's what they came up with:
...complete with the annoying, self-absorbed architectspeak that spilled out alongside the drawings. We'll spare you the myriad pretentiousness. A little dab'll do you with this stuff:
The building consists of three separate but woven bands. The first engages the ground where the weathered steel exterior rises and lowers to create a sense of visual transparency, transitioning into a grand civic gesture that cantilevers out into a spectacular canopy at the corner of Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues.
What, nothing about SHoP's designs curing AIDS and getting pigs'a'flyin'? How genuine and low-key.
And how about that interview with the NY Observer?
Pasquarelli: "I like Bruce. He’s very intense. He’s very smart, and he’s dealing with a lot of things at one time, but I know his heart is really in making a fabulous design."
His heart is in beating back community opposition, steamrolling residents, gag orders on people he does business with, filching $726 million in public money for the Atlantic Yards project, abusing eminent domain, exploiting peoples' fears about affordable housing and jobs, and distoring Brooklyn's past and future as a way to do business.
...Pasquarelli, on signing on to a controversial project: "We gave serious consideration as to whether we wanted to do it."
Yeah, not so much. If you had, you would've said "no." SHoP is a hot firm in architectural circles. Whatever the cost of the chaos and hits to SHoP's reputation (see Gehry, Frank, Atlantic Yards, face, egg-on), Ratner was able to pay it. Which, by the way, proves again that Ratner can throw money around when he wants, then claim poverty when he needs.
Related coverage
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, SHoP's Pasquarelli Channels Gehry's, Um, Attitude on Atlantic Yards Gig
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, Tonight, 9/14: A Conversation With Ratner's New Arena Designers, SHoP Architects
A Conversation with the Architects of the Barclays Center
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 14 6:00 PM - 7:30 PM
Brooklyn Borough Hall, Courtroom, 2nd floorThe Empire State Development Corporation hosts a discussion on the new designs for the Barclays Center with building architects, Bill Crockett, Director of Sports Architecture at Ellerbe Beckett and Gregg Pasquarelli, Founding Partner of SHoP.
Click to RSVP, space is limited.
Posted by eric at September 14, 2009 12:25 PM