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June 3, 2010
Throwing Stones at Builders’ Crass Houses
The New York Times
by Jason Zinoman
The Times gets around to reviewing The Bilbao Effect.
Mr. Safdie deserves credit for trying something more ambitious, a farce of ideas in a style that only certain playwrights, like John Guare, can pull off. Echoing the recent brouhaha over Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn, the plot imagines a controversy about a Staten Island development designed by a famous architect with little concern for the public.
That “starchitect,” Erhardt Shlaminger (Joris Stuyck, performing with a mix of vanity, wit and entitlement), faces censure by his peers at the American Institute of Architects. Riffing on a problem that beset Mr. Gehry’s design of the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, Mr. Safdie has Shlaminger’s creation reflect sunlight into the windows of a nearby apartment building with such fierceness that the temperature inside soars. Paul Bolzano (Anthony Giaimo) lived in one of those apartments and claims the reflection sent his wife into a depression.
NoLandGrab: Having peered up at Gehry's (and Ratner's) Beekman Tower a few weeks ago on a sunny day, we can attest that the reflected sunlight issue wasn't limited to Disney Hall.
Posted by eric at June 3, 2010 9:27 AM