After much speculation and guesswork, preliminary designs by seven competing developers were revealed at a public presentation last night for the inescapable condos and luxury hotel that will be built behind Pier 1 in Brooklyn Bridge Park. The developers hoping to build on the coveted waterfront parkland are Extell, Starwood Capital Group, Toll Brothers, Two Trees, RAL Companies & Affiliates, SDS Procida and Dermot, and their architectural visions are all over the aesthetic map. Let’s have a laugh look…
The stacks of pancakes, designed by FXFowle for developer Dermot Company:
The generic glass and brick patchwork, designed by Beyer Blinder Belle for developer Extell:
The suburban office park, designed by Cangelosi Design & Architecture for developer Robert A. Levine:
The peeling glass-and-concrete sandwich, designed by Leeser Architects for developer SDS Procida:
The shimmering domestic lighthouse, designed by Bernheimer Architects, Alloy Development, nArchitects for developers Starwood Capital with Alloy, Hamlin and Monadnock:
The “it’s so generic I can’t find anything to make fun of,” designed by Rogers Marvel for developer Toll Brothers:
And last but not least, the moldy cheese grater, designed by WASA/Studio A Landscape for developer Two Trees:
No word on when a developer/architect team will be chosen, much less on when shovel will meet dirt, or when move-ins will begin. One thing’s for sure: whatever gets built will look nothing like any of these designs.
Whatever they pick should have all retail storefronting at street level to help activate the park. Jesus, that’s like Urban Planning 101. The Leeser one is particularly bad, with a psychotic blank wall for most of the frontage.
All of these designs are stuck in modernism. I don’t understand it–have all other aesthetics and disciplines in architecture gone extinct or something? Can someone who is more informed about these design styles give us a primer on what really distinguishes each one from the other?
Holy Toledo, what a mess. Quite a monument to ol’ Bloomie. Disgusting. And all the pols have gone along with it, too. Poor Brooklyn. Wasn’t this supposed to be a park?