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