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March 31, 2011
There’s a ‘middle way’ in architecture
The Providence Journal
by David Brussat
Some will say my column of two weeks ago, “A modernist building I actually like,” should have run tomorrow.
Applause for a building designed by Frank Gehry ought to fall on April Fool’s Day. I will probably find some way to regret my kind words for his new Beekman Tower, a 76-story residential skyscraper that developer Bruce Ratner renamed “New York by Frank Gehry at 8 Spruce St.” By putting the architect’s name in the title of the building, Ratner revealed his doubts that it looked enough like a Gehry to lure edgy renters into its pricey units.
That’s why it appealed to me. It almost looks like a traditional New York skyscraper. Very not-Gehry. But a colleague who’d just visited New York and saw the building said it was awful. And my editor urged me to write about the difference between seeing a building in photos and seeing it in person. I think he was suggesting that I might have to revise and extend my remarks, as they say in Congress.
Well, since I still haven’t seen the building in person, I’m not yet prepared to revise my remarks. But I sure can extend them.
Posted by eric at March 31, 2011 10:28 AM