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Reply To: | BP - Dwell time 5 minutes. |
Date: | Sat, 8 May 1999 12:29:01 EDT |
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Today's Times carries an article about the proposed Walentas development on
the East River between the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges. Walentas -
donning the mantle of "good" architecture - has hired French architect Jean
Nouvel and is reported to say that he wants to design something like the
(ultra-Romantic-modern) Sydney Opera House on part of the riverfront site,
where the homogeneity of the gritty industrial vistas presents an ancient
majesty.
A community leader complains that "it is a totally inappropriate structure
... right next to Civil War era warehouses." The Times writer, Herbert
Muschamp, observes several NY projects underway by prominent foreign
architects, a list including the Austrian Cultural Institute at 11 East 52nd
Street (Raimund Abraham) and the Vuitton building at 15? East 57th (Christian
de Portzamparc).
When I read the "inappropriate" quote, I winced - shades of the "barf index"
discussion we had last year regarding the Jewish Museum annex at 92nd & Fifth.
Why does a Sydney-Opera-House-in-Brooklyn appeal to me - even while the
Austrian and Vuitton buildings are/promise to be so awful?
The Austrian building project has already destroyed a noble limestone house,
the last reasonably intact townhouse on that formerly grand block. The
Vuitton building destroyed a miraculous fragment, an 1870's mansard roofed
rowhouse. Despite their much touted capital-A Architecture (actually,
ARCHITECTURE) both new buildings reduce rather than enlarge the variety,
intricacy and memory on their streets.
On the other hand, the same buildings on the margin of a wide sweep on an
industrial area promises to add, not subtract, variety. I think the
warehouses will look better, not worse. There are other issues - traffic
planning and public policy - but to me this is an example where the
"preservation" battle cry often adopted by community groups is not about
architecture, whether capital or lower-case.
But then, if my posts are so brilliant, why do people keep signing off of BP?
Christopher Gray, from a foreign country called Kansas City
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