Just got back from NYC, and heard two interesting views on the proposed and approved new 80 story Frank Gehry series of housing in Brooklyn. One was that they started demo of some great brown stone existing housing and that the buildings will be twice as tall as the tallest current structure that is there, completely out of context of the neighborhood. The other arguement consisted of a rationale that the city needed the housing and that half of it was to be affordable housing (if your income is 80k that is). Any thoughts?
We saw that one too...it was insane the columns...not only do some of them slant, but they get BIGGER as you go up, and the bottom of one column doesn't rest on top of more than half of the column below it...
{Designed by noted architect Frank Gehry, the geometric façade has eight skyward arcs of glass that will mimic wind-whipped sails of boats making their way along the Hudson River, just across the West Side Highway. Besides reflecting both men's love of sailing, the design of the building in the West Chelsea neighborhood incorporates Mr. Diller's admission that IAC is forming itself without a compass for guidance. "We're making it up as we go along in the interactive [commerce] area, and because of the nature of interactive revenue, there are few rules," Mr. Diller says.} linky
But what bout the 80 stories! This is one relatively small building that is in a context of larger buildings (both horizontaly and verticaly) where the 80 stories aren't in the appropriate context.
Frankly, I'm not the biggest fan of Gehry, but I don't hate his work. It tends to grow on me. But more specificaly I wouldn't want it in my face all the time.
I do hate his work; he is a whore and a pony with a serious one trick problem. I know the entire BS about how he runs his firm (economics) and the technologies that go into it and he should be applauded for being a champion of such ideologies but, unfortunately, he sucks. And blows - attempting to keep with the theme here. And he alone is not truly to blame because he clearly has a small army working for him as well as a small group of investors who believe in him. Every time I open a magazine or newspaper he has a new building in the works!! He should have closed the doors after Bilbao. That piece, at least to my small mind, acts as the climax of a significant evolution of an architectural practice that few others can rival.
And this Brooklyn project (hotly contested by members of the nabe) will just destroy this area of Brooklyn. It would destroy any area of ANY city. The intentions are good but the actualization will not be.
If anyone can provide me with an example of a project of similar size and scope that was carried out successfully in an urban context I will overhaul my perceptions, but until then let the cluster fuck roll on! Cause I can't stop it.
The most important words in Real Estate development after location, location, location are As of Right. Developers invested a great deal of money in lobbying to have a downtown Brooklyn rezoned for very tall development. So by the time the public gets to see what these guys are up to the battle has been long lost. In terms of what is currently on the books and in CDs those Ghery buildings are in scale with what the context will be in 10 years.
montu-
is the process transparent? does the "public" have the ability to know and understand the proposed changes that can and will happen to their neighborhood over the next ten years? If so then I blame them for not taking action when they still had the opp.
Also, I still do not believe that the gehry extravaganza that will take place will be good for anyone in the long term or short.
Also, the high rises of McCarren, wow? one of them looks like an import from Cuba! How is it that architecture fails so badly so often? I am feeling quite cynical today.........
Just because the public has the opportunity to view the process but doesn't, isn't a gaurantee that it's their fault. That's like a cop pulling you over and ticketing you for some outrageous law that NO ONE recognizes. Ofcourse their comment is "it's in the books, go look" which is a total BS and jerk answer. This ofcourse is a much larger scale and should not be taken so lightly. I.E. if the process was open to the public, but wasn't properly advertised or emphasized, then it's hard to blame them the public isn't it?
BTW, I thought we weren't allowed to trade with Cuba...
Transparency is a relative term lets say the process is translucent which gives a truer sense of how things work. It is difficult for the average Joe to perceive a threat when it is in the form of ordinances and zoning envelopes. It is simply not that scary.
CUBA got a Rage Against the Machine concert.
We got Soviet era public housing being sold at $800 dollars a square foot.
Seems like a fair trade to me.
It is difficult to blame the victim. Which will be anyone interested in a small to medium scale livable Brooklyn.
The COMING building BOOM will be good for business in Brooklyn. It will be transformative.
Relative terms
Like “Properly advertised and emphasized†is difficult to get my arms around some one needs to care enough to scream fire and no one did.
Perhaps about 5 years ago there was a community board meeting that concerned Brooklynites needed to storm.l guarantee you if you look at the minutes it was only attended by the usual suspects.
I agree about the community meetings...most likely, no one showed up, or not enough to do anything. Think about shop owners "your business will be 10 times what it is now" and building owners "property value will skyrocket" - no one is going to turn $$ money down.
Sure, developers take advantage where they can, but that's business. No one stops development just because they like the way things are now. Most cities are like this now - once nice and small neighborhoods are growing monolithic buildings seemingly overnight, but in most places, it's been coming for a decade (in planning and approval).
Imo, I like the first building I posted, second one looks a tad nicer than your regular highrise.
so where is the neighborhood that it grossly overshadows? The buildings around there look at least half it's height (conservative estimate), one looks almost as tall? Look at Florida for absurd highrises (not to mention some absolutely hideous ones)!
I just find the Gehry bashing particularly amusing....:-)
Most developers deal in mediocrity.
That any of them would see a premium in hiring a FOGA and or a Mier is astonishing to me.
Something is going to be built on that site and it is going to be that tall because ‘As of Right’ the law says you can. All we can do at this point is hope that Frank who has a great deal of integrity like his work or not will give us something exciting and or at least interesting. If construction begins and you start to see exposed edge slab detailing you know exactly what you’re going to get and Frank has sold his soul.
It is in the hands if the gods and or the mighty dollar.
they hire them because they are good investments. Their names go a long way, generate free publicity (like now), etc., etc.
It's good business and it's happening more and more. Personally, I am glad because it's making good design a good business decision, something most architects seem to forget (and most developers, for that matter).
Are you claiming that Gehry is good design? I'd hardly believe that and 80 story wet dream of Frank's (yes, we're tight like that) will be good design. Sure, better than the brutalist concrete spires that are scattered throughout the country, but still. I also realize that cities will keep expanding (it's an inevitability with our ever growing population) and I'm all for high density in the already urban developments to prevent sprawl. Unfortunately we're not doing a good job at such.
Frankly I'm concerned if SuperBeat. is right about the affordable part. Sure, 80K income is much more common in NYC than your midwest lightweight, but still what are their plans for lower income? I just don't see cities having proper long term planning (like only 10 years or so).
Good for business bad for architecture and people in Brooklyn... oh well I guess I don't mind Manhattan becoming Disneyland Main Street…. I’m sure the people that live in Brooklyn now can afford these new places to live… HA! If this is gentrification then gentrification is a dirty word!!! A sleazy developer will always get around the 80K watermark with some loop holes I have seen this happen don’t worry… no poor people allowed.
I claim that Gehry and his ilk will be able to get a developer to build against their typical instinct. This is where the Star Architect system might have some benefit to the profession and the public as a whole, they raise the level of architectural prominence in the public discourse.
This can oly help us all.
When he builds buildings they are very, very well done… Clean technically advanced tight…
Whether it is good architecture or not I open that question to the floor.
.
not claiming these will be great buildings, but I do think they'll be better than the majority of firms could/can do. They look pretty innocent to me. A few leaning walls, but that's it.
NY is one area that will be transformed in the next decade. This is the first step and it won't stop here. Land is just too valuable not to build as much as possible. Again, it's all business.
Personally, I find New Orleans to be a significantly larger concern, but that's a different discussion.
"When he builds buildings they are very, very well done"
Yeah, if he doesn't go over budget and then decide to use shoty materials. He spends all his money on the design and technology, and half the time uses fantastic materials and the rest f's it all up.
Still, I'll take Gehry over Eisenmann any day. That guy's a cuuk!
montu... I used to live in Chicago and the band shell he did for millieium park looks great on the outside, but once you go up to the details they are far from "clean" and the corrugated shed behind seems like a afterthought. Do not kid yourself!!! I must say that the forms are nice enough but it seems like the technology does not meet the construction reality, and that is a major job of the architect. I do appreciate pushing the envelop but at what cost do these forms stop being architecture and just sculpture with worthless space inside. Interestingly when I went to the Vitra Chair Museum and saw the Gehry Museum next to the Tadao Ando pavilion, Gehry’s building looks ridiculous like a “duckâ€. If you look at the site plan you can see Ando went so far as to block views of the Gehry building while you were experiencing his building. (thank goodness)
I'd challenge if the materials are unclean due to technology or due to overbudget. Gehry claims economy in his designs, well how can that be when he uses the most complex of desiging software with a staff that must be in the minority as far as their knowledge of such. In addition, it's not like contractors know how to build these things, so there's even more time and money in training. Answer, he goes cheap and crappy on materials on several of his buildings.
I'm all about pushing the envelope and creating controversy, but joe is right, when does this cross the line of piss poor spaces.
I think as architects we often forget our client. Sure, we want to go outside of the box and create something that will provoke conversation. But on another hand there are the hundreds of people that occupy some of these buildings on a daily basis, ones that will not be torn down nor renovated for years because of the cost that it took to hire and build a 'star' architect. And while we are having conversations about what this new building means (good and bad) everyone else is secretely planning our demise, and I don't blame them.
"When he builds buildings they are very, very well done…'
i'm not so sure about this. almost all of his building leak and are extremely difficult to clean. some of his buildings have been deemed difficult to use by the occupants. the area around at lease one of his building must be zoned off because large amounts of snow slide right off and extremely dangerous to passers by.
I agree Joe A when i grow up (so to speak) I want to be Ando rather than Gehry. They do different things, they serve different purposes.
Can you imagine Silverstien and or Ratner hiring Ando to do a building?
He does architecture and achieves things that can’t be quantified and or reduced to a easily marketable image or buzzword.
Although Schrager hiring Pawson is an interesting twist on this line of thinking he has found a way to market less in an industry that favors ubiquitous moreness.
(Didn't Ando just do a shopping mall?)
The Chicago bandshell example is scenery and not a building in the typical sense it has different requirements.
funny you should mention Vitra. I thought the exact opposite. To me(and others I was with), I looked at Ando's building adn thought "did anyone tell him it was going to be small?". it's one of the most grossly underscaled buildings I've seen. Snap ties every 2'?? Talk about a fetish! Some parts were nice, but it felt dead and like it should be 10 times larger to feel 'right'.
Gehry's museum, on the other hand, was about space and light. It uplifted everyone that say it and helped people that were skeptical of Gehry appreciate his work (this happend with Hadid's firestation).
I've only been to a few Gehry buildings, but they've always had good craftsmanship and materials. Not sure which ones you are referring to that don't (look at Koolhaas for cheap materials).
I love some of Ando's stuff, don't get me wrong. I just appreciate them both. I am all done defending him, though, so keep bashing.
man i still don't get the anti-gehry thing goin on...
the arguments agin him often come off as churlish, so i dunno if any of yall actually care that brooklyn is gonna get a serious changeover that might not be good for brooklyn or if yall are just pissed off at gehry for being...gehry. wassup?
seems the proposal is going to go forward with or without gehry, and my own feeling is that this is probably better than another round of buildings be c peli...
Gehry Skyrise
Just got back from NYC, and heard two interesting views on the proposed and approved new 80 story Frank Gehry series of housing in Brooklyn. One was that they started demo of some great brown stone existing housing and that the buildings will be twice as tall as the tallest current structure that is there, completely out of context of the neighborhood. The other arguement consisted of a rationale that the city needed the housing and that half of it was to be affordable housing (if your income is 80k that is). Any thoughts?
As long as it doesn't look like this:
what in tarnation.... where's the iconographers input on these three emporers
.... do these guys have neighbours? the monkeygod office tower?
We saw that one too...it was insane the columns...not only do some of them slant, but they get BIGGER as you go up, and the bottom of one column doesn't rest on top of more than half of the column below it...
it's like a office building with a nervous tick
what a waste of space... you can do this in some open field but in New York????
{Designed by noted architect Frank Gehry, the geometric façade has eight skyward arcs of glass that will mimic wind-whipped sails of boats making their way along the Hudson River, just across the West Side Highway. Besides reflecting both men's love of sailing, the design of the building in the West Chelsea neighborhood incorporates Mr. Diller's admission that IAC is forming itself without a compass for guidance. "We're making it up as we go along in the interactive [commerce] area, and because of the nature of interactive revenue, there are few rules," Mr. Diller says.}
linky
But what bout the 80 stories! This is one relatively small building that is in a context of larger buildings (both horizontaly and verticaly) where the 80 stories aren't in the appropriate context.
Frankly, I'm not the biggest fan of Gehry, but I don't hate his work. It tends to grow on me. But more specificaly I wouldn't want it in my face all the time.
I do hate his work; he is a whore and a pony with a serious one trick problem. I know the entire BS about how he runs his firm (economics) and the technologies that go into it and he should be applauded for being a champion of such ideologies but, unfortunately, he sucks. And blows - attempting to keep with the theme here. And he alone is not truly to blame because he clearly has a small army working for him as well as a small group of investors who believe in him. Every time I open a magazine or newspaper he has a new building in the works!! He should have closed the doors after Bilbao. That piece, at least to my small mind, acts as the climax of a significant evolution of an architectural practice that few others can rival.
And this Brooklyn project (hotly contested by members of the nabe) will just destroy this area of Brooklyn. It would destroy any area of ANY city. The intentions are good but the actualization will not be.
If anyone can provide me with an example of a project of similar size and scope that was carried out successfully in an urban context I will overhaul my perceptions, but until then let the cluster fuck roll on! Cause I can't stop it.
Well argued...
The most important words in Real Estate development after location, location, location are As of Right. Developers invested a great deal of money in lobbying to have a downtown Brooklyn rezoned for very tall development. So by the time the public gets to see what these guys are up to the battle has been long lost. In terms of what is currently on the books and in CDs those Ghery buildings are in scale with what the context will be in 10 years.
Defend Brooklyn
It's not half as bad as the highrises off McCarren Park
montu-
is the process transparent? does the "public" have the ability to know and understand the proposed changes that can and will happen to their neighborhood over the next ten years? If so then I blame them for not taking action when they still had the opp.
Also, I still do not believe that the gehry extravaganza that will take place will be good for anyone in the long term or short.
Also, the high rises of McCarren, wow? one of them looks like an import from Cuba! How is it that architecture fails so badly so often? I am feeling quite cynical today.........
Just because the public has the opportunity to view the process but doesn't, isn't a gaurantee that it's their fault. That's like a cop pulling you over and ticketing you for some outrageous law that NO ONE recognizes. Ofcourse their comment is "it's in the books, go look" which is a total BS and jerk answer. This ofcourse is a much larger scale and should not be taken so lightly. I.E. if the process was open to the public, but wasn't properly advertised or emphasized, then it's hard to blame them the public isn't it?
BTW, I thought we weren't allowed to trade with Cuba...
Transparency is a relative term lets say the process is translucent which gives a truer sense of how things work. It is difficult for the average Joe to perceive a threat when it is in the form of ordinances and zoning envelopes. It is simply not that scary.
CUBA got a Rage Against the Machine concert.
We got Soviet era public housing being sold at $800 dollars a square foot.
Seems like a fair trade to me.
http://www.gothamist.com/archives/2003/10/14/gehry_goes_to_the_west_side.php
It is difficult to blame the victim. Which will be anyone interested in a small to medium scale livable Brooklyn.
The COMING building BOOM will be good for business in Brooklyn. It will be transformative.
Relative terms
Like “Properly advertised and emphasized†is difficult to get my arms around some one needs to care enough to scream fire and no one did.
Perhaps about 5 years ago there was a community board meeting that concerned Brooklynites needed to storm.l guarantee you if you look at the minutes it was only attended by the usual suspects.
Is this what everyone is talking about?
Si
I agree about the community meetings...most likely, no one showed up, or not enough to do anything. Think about shop owners "your business will be 10 times what it is now" and building owners "property value will skyrocket" - no one is going to turn $$ money down.
Sure, developers take advantage where they can, but that's business. No one stops development just because they like the way things are now. Most cities are like this now - once nice and small neighborhoods are growing monolithic buildings seemingly overnight, but in most places, it's been coming for a decade (in planning and approval).
Imo, I like the first building I posted, second one looks a tad nicer than your regular highrise.
so where is the neighborhood that it grossly overshadows? The buildings around there look at least half it's height (conservative estimate), one looks almost as tall? Look at Florida for absurd highrises (not to mention some absolutely hideous ones)!
I just find the Gehry bashing particularly amusing....:-)
next time i see a guy with this tee shirt.
i'll sing;
gimmeeee
o o oooo,
your dirty love..
(i know i can never be as good as vado)
Most developers deal in mediocrity.
That any of them would see a premium in hiring a FOGA and or a Mier is astonishing to me.
Something is going to be built on that site and it is going to be that tall because ‘As of Right’ the law says you can. All we can do at this point is hope that Frank who has a great deal of integrity like his work or not will give us something exciting and or at least interesting. If construction begins and you start to see exposed edge slab detailing you know exactly what you’re going to get and Frank has sold his soul.
It is in the hands if the gods and or the mighty dollar.
they hire them because they are good investments. Their names go a long way, generate free publicity (like now), etc., etc.
It's good business and it's happening more and more. Personally, I am glad because it's making good design a good business decision, something most architects seem to forget (and most developers, for that matter).
business & business
Trace-
Are you claiming that Gehry is good design? I'd hardly believe that and 80 story wet dream of Frank's (yes, we're tight like that) will be good design. Sure, better than the brutalist concrete spires that are scattered throughout the country, but still. I also realize that cities will keep expanding (it's an inevitability with our ever growing population) and I'm all for high density in the already urban developments to prevent sprawl. Unfortunately we're not doing a good job at such.
Frankly I'm concerned if SuperBeat. is right about the affordable part. Sure, 80K income is much more common in NYC than your midwest lightweight, but still what are their plans for lower income? I just don't see cities having proper long term planning (like only 10 years or so).
Good for business bad for architecture and people in Brooklyn... oh well I guess I don't mind Manhattan becoming Disneyland Main Street…. I’m sure the people that live in Brooklyn now can afford these new places to live… HA! If this is gentrification then gentrification is a dirty word!!! A sleazy developer will always get around the 80K watermark with some loop holes I have seen this happen don’t worry… no poor people allowed.
I claim that Gehry and his ilk will be able to get a developer to build against their typical instinct. This is where the Star Architect system might have some benefit to the profession and the public as a whole, they raise the level of architectural prominence in the public discourse.
This can oly help us all.
When he builds buildings they are very, very well done… Clean technically advanced tight…
Whether it is good architecture or not I open that question to the floor.
.
not claiming these will be great buildings, but I do think they'll be better than the majority of firms could/can do. They look pretty innocent to me. A few leaning walls, but that's it.
NY is one area that will be transformed in the next decade. This is the first step and it won't stop here. Land is just too valuable not to build as much as possible. Again, it's all business.
Personally, I find New Orleans to be a significantly larger concern, but that's a different discussion.
"When he builds buildings they are very, very well done"
Yeah, if he doesn't go over budget and then decide to use shoty materials. He spends all his money on the design and technology, and half the time uses fantastic materials and the rest f's it all up.
Still, I'll take Gehry over Eisenmann any day. That guy's a cuuk!
montu... I used to live in Chicago and the band shell he did for millieium park looks great on the outside, but once you go up to the details they are far from "clean" and the corrugated shed behind seems like a afterthought. Do not kid yourself!!! I must say that the forms are nice enough but it seems like the technology does not meet the construction reality, and that is a major job of the architect. I do appreciate pushing the envelop but at what cost do these forms stop being architecture and just sculpture with worthless space inside. Interestingly when I went to the Vitra Chair Museum and saw the Gehry Museum next to the Tadao Ando pavilion, Gehry’s building looks ridiculous like a “duckâ€. If you look at the site plan you can see Ando went so far as to block views of the Gehry building while you were experiencing his building. (thank goodness)
I'd challenge if the materials are unclean due to technology or due to overbudget. Gehry claims economy in his designs, well how can that be when he uses the most complex of desiging software with a staff that must be in the minority as far as their knowledge of such. In addition, it's not like contractors know how to build these things, so there's even more time and money in training. Answer, he goes cheap and crappy on materials on several of his buildings.
I'm all about pushing the envelope and creating controversy, but joe is right, when does this cross the line of piss poor spaces.
I think as architects we often forget our client. Sure, we want to go outside of the box and create something that will provoke conversation. But on another hand there are the hundreds of people that occupy some of these buildings on a daily basis, ones that will not be torn down nor renovated for years because of the cost that it took to hire and build a 'star' architect. And while we are having conversations about what this new building means (good and bad) everyone else is secretely planning our demise, and I don't blame them.
joe architect
"When he builds buildings they are very, very well done…'
i'm not so sure about this. almost all of his building leak and are extremely difficult to clean. some of his buildings have been deemed difficult to use by the occupants. the area around at lease one of his building must be zoned off because large amounts of snow slide right off and extremely dangerous to passers by.
and yes, i would also take gerhy over eisenmann too. eisenmann's buildings look like cheap ass toys.
joe architect
I agree Joe A when i grow up (so to speak) I want to be Ando rather than Gehry. They do different things, they serve different purposes.
Can you imagine Silverstien and or Ratner hiring Ando to do a building?
He does architecture and achieves things that can’t be quantified and or reduced to a easily marketable image or buzzword.
Although Schrager hiring Pawson is an interesting twist on this line of thinking he has found a way to market less in an industry that favors ubiquitous moreness.
(Didn't Ando just do a shopping mall?)
The Chicago bandshell example is scenery and not a building in the typical sense it has different requirements.
did anyone see the Simpsons where Snake escapes from the Frank Gehry prision, "No Frank Gehry building can hold me... hahhaha"
Sometimes I think eisenmann loses interest past 1/2" scale model.
He does'nt want to dirty his hands.
Ando is a brilliant man, and he is a prime example of making glowing spaces...he's the next Kahn....
Nooooo, not that Kahn.
KAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHN!
When I design strip malls I think to myself hmmm what would Le Corbusier do here?
Joe A-
I'm similar to that way of thinking. When I consider who I want to date I think to myself "what would Le Corbusier do here?"
Barn, you may want to be careful with that kind of thinking...Corby led the film noir life.
In that project photo, only the building at left will actually get built. Gehry name on a conventional tower. The free-form ones won't be built.
funny you should mention Vitra. I thought the exact opposite. To me(and others I was with), I looked at Ando's building adn thought "did anyone tell him it was going to be small?". it's one of the most grossly underscaled buildings I've seen. Snap ties every 2'?? Talk about a fetish! Some parts were nice, but it felt dead and like it should be 10 times larger to feel 'right'.
Gehry's museum, on the other hand, was about space and light. It uplifted everyone that say it and helped people that were skeptical of Gehry appreciate his work (this happend with Hadid's firestation).
I've only been to a few Gehry buildings, but they've always had good craftsmanship and materials. Not sure which ones you are referring to that don't (look at Koolhaas for cheap materials).
I love some of Ando's stuff, don't get me wrong. I just appreciate them both. I am all done defending him, though, so keep bashing.
man i still don't get the anti-gehry thing goin on...
the arguments agin him often come off as churlish, so i dunno if any of yall actually care that brooklyn is gonna get a serious changeover that might not be good for brooklyn or if yall are just pissed off at gehry for being...gehry. wassup?
seems the proposal is going to go forward with or without gehry, and my own feeling is that this is probably better than another round of buildings be c peli...
give me your dirty love abra...
What the heck do you think his dreams are like...cause mine are scarry enough....and well I don't pass off his kind of work everyday.
We're Only In It For The Money
frank the tank!!! frank the tank!!!
it feels so good when it hits your lips!
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