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October 6, 2010
The Eyesore of the Month
by James Howard Kunstler
Architectural Abortions from the USA and Around the World
(And Sometimes Other Miscellany Infecting the Landscape)
October 2010
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Presenting the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, NY, brought to you by real estate impressario Bruce Ratner. This basketball arena, designed to look like a Little Debbie Peanut Butter and Coconut Snack Cake, was designed by Ellerbe Becket and SHoP Architects. (Notice the "playfulness" of the SHoP logo (subtext: "...we're all babies now...!"). Perhaps basketball players live on Little Debbie Cakes. I don't know. But the cherry-on-top of the whole deal is the so-called "plaza" in the foreground -- a leftover triangular scrap of undevelopable real estate that Mr. Ratner threw to the people of Brooklyn as a bone to dogs. Lovely spot, huh, sandwiched, as it is, between about eleven lanes of traffic.
NoLandGrab: Kunstler is too kind — we count at least 12 lanes of traffic, not including lay-by lanes.
Posted by eric at October 6, 2010 9:29 AM