SHoP, the architecture firm that designed the stunning "lighthouse" of the Meat Packing District in Chelsea known as The Porter House at 360 West 15th Street, a roof-top addition with vertical illuminated strips, is reported to have been selected by Forest City Ratner to assist in the design of its controversial Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn.
According to an article this afternoon by Eliot Brown at observer.com, the "choice seems a face-saving move for Forest City, as a substantial backlash from public officials and the press followed its" its recent decision to drop Frank O. Gehry as the architect and replace him with Ellerbe Beckett.
Gehry is the most famous and influential architect in the world, but Ellerbe Beckett is generally not considered to be in the vanguard of exciting design.
SHoP's other projects include a residential condominium with highly textured and undulating masonry facades at 290 Mulberry Street in NoLiTa, the design of the East River Esplanade and the design of the expansion of a building at the Fashion Institute of Technology that involves similar exotic and spectacular treatments of transparency and circulation as the new Cooper Union building on the Bowery designed by Morphosis.
SHoP also was commissioned to revamp the South Street Seaport by a developer that has since experienced financial difficulties that have put the future of that ambitious plan in doubt.
Forest City Ratner's plans for Atlantic Yards included a new arena for Mr. Ratner's basketball team, the New Jersey Nets, as well as 16 other buildings that were supposed to include affordable housing.
Mr. Brown's article said that Forest City Ratner "plans to unveil renderings of the $800 million arena later this month." "The arena is the centerpiece of a larger $4.9 billion planned apartment tower complex..that was approved after a lengthy political fight in 2006, but has been stalled on account of lawsuits and the economic crisis," Mr. Brown wrote, adding that "The developer must sell about $700 million in bonds to investors before the end of the year in order to qualify for tax-exempt status, lest the cost of borrowing go up by perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars."
It was publicly disclosed in June that Mr. Gehry was no longer involved in the project and Nicholas Ouroussoff, the architecture critic of The New York Times, described the scrapping of his plans in a June 8, 2009 article as "a shameful betrayal of the public trust."
According to an article this afternoon by Eliot Brown at observer.com, the "choice seems a face-saving move for Forest City, as a substantial backlash from public officials and the press followed its" its recent decision to drop Frank O. Gehry as the architect and replace him with Ellerbe Beckett.
Gehry is the most famous and influential architect in the world, but Ellerbe Beckett is generally not considered to be in the vanguard of exciting design.
SHoP's other projects include a residential condominium with highly textured and undulating masonry facades at 290 Mulberry Street in NoLiTa, the design of the East River Esplanade and the design of the expansion of a building at the Fashion Institute of Technology that involves similar exotic and spectacular treatments of transparency and circulation as the new Cooper Union building on the Bowery designed by Morphosis.
SHoP also was commissioned to revamp the South Street Seaport by a developer that has since experienced financial difficulties that have put the future of that ambitious plan in doubt.
Forest City Ratner's plans for Atlantic Yards included a new arena for Mr. Ratner's basketball team, the New Jersey Nets, as well as 16 other buildings that were supposed to include affordable housing.
Mr. Brown's article said that Forest City Ratner "plans to unveil renderings of the $800 million arena later this month." "The arena is the centerpiece of a larger $4.9 billion planned apartment tower complex..that was approved after a lengthy political fight in 2006, but has been stalled on account of lawsuits and the economic crisis," Mr. Brown wrote, adding that "The developer must sell about $700 million in bonds to investors before the end of the year in order to qualify for tax-exempt status, lest the cost of borrowing go up by perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars."
It was publicly disclosed in June that Mr. Gehry was no longer involved in the project and Nicholas Ouroussoff, the architecture critic of The New York Times, described the scrapping of his plans in a June 8, 2009 article as "a shameful betrayal of the public trust."
Architecture Critic
Carter Horsley
Since 1997, Carter B. Horsley has been the editorial director of CityRealty. He began his journalistic career at The New York Times in 1961 where he spent 26 years as a reporter specializing in real estate & architectural news. In 1987, he became the architecture critic and real estate editor of The New York Post.
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