No judgements here… well, maybe a few.
A ferry ride up the East River, zigzagging between Manhattan and Brooklyn, gave me a chance to see New York from new directions, and to observe some new directions in architecture, not all of them tasty.
A common theme of all my examples appears to be a desire to break out of the box of rectangular architecture in one way or another. In some cases, like the top photo of 32 Old Slip in Manhattan, designed in 1987 by Edward Durell Stone, the effect is achieved mostly by decorative elements. But immediately above, the 8 Spruce Street tower by another ‘starchitect,’ Frank Gehry, uses a combination of visual tricks and actually physical twisting of the building. When it opened, by the way, it was the tallest residential building in North America.
Jumping across the river to the Brooklyn Navy Yard, now an industrial and commercial area, we come to Dock 72 by S9 Architecture. Coming into the ferry pier at its base, it bears some resemblance to a ship. The architects say that it was “designed in response to the way people work today,” whatever that means. Frankly, it looked better in the architect’s drawings (second image).
A bit further up the river, still in Brooklyn, we come to 420 Kent Avenue, which offers boasts about its views and ‘private outdoor spaces in the sky’ and ‘intimate moments of interaction both indoors and out.’ The architect, Evan Chan, has a boast of his own: “We challenged the rectangular architectural form of today. No longer are the four corners the most desirable; we’ve unboxed the ‘big box.” I’d say it’s more accurate to say he pushed the boxes around.
Next up: The Domino Sugar complex, which added a multi-story glass topper and the historic sign to what was once the largest sugar refinery in the U.S. Its other buildings were replaced with a number of modern residential and commercial structures, each with a twist, or at least shape, of its own. All are the work of SHoP Architects, a currently vogue firm.
325 Kent Avenue, above, is basically a large box with a large hole punched through it; it’s been described as a square doughnut.
This building takes its hole in a different direction. It’s actually two buildings. Ten Grand Street is a 24-story office building, while One South First Street is all apartments. Like nearly all the new buildings that have replaced industry on the Brooklyn waterfront, it’s heavy in amenities and price, although some “affordable rent” apartments are included in some.
A last stop on the Brooklyn side at Greenpoint Landing, another former industry-and-port area. Two buildings, named Eagle and West, face each other with nearly matching shapes. Again, not so much as breaking out of the box as pushing it out of shape….
Speaking of being ‘out of shape,’ these are the Copper Buildings, on the Manhattan side, another work by SHoP. The name comes from the copper framing of the windows, not, as many of us once thought, from the American Copper Company, since the buildings were originally named American Copper. Visually interesting, but without a real reason for the bends except, as I suspect is true for many unusual buildings: “because I can.”
To my mind, this building defies reason. Called Sutton 58 (it’s at Sutton Place and East 58th Street). It’s 62 stories high, with only two apartments per floor because it’s only wide enough for three windows on the ends and five on the sides. When you subtract space for elevators and utilities, those aren’t very big apartments—except for the 5-bedroom triplex at the top.
I’ll leave off here where I left off the ferry: in the East 90s, home to a true ‘box-breaker,’ the former Municipal Asphalt Plant, built in 1944 to produce asphalt for Manhattan’s street-paving needs. It was a milestone in its time not only for its elegant design but as the first parabolic-arched building in the United States to use reinforced concrete, poured in place over prefabricated steel arches. Eighty-some years later, it now serves as the heart of a community recreation center.
