Brooklynites concerned about Bruce Ratner's overdevlopment plan for Brooklyn might want to pay attention to a lawsuit MIT has filed against Ratner's architect, Frank Gehry.
Frank Gehry is a controversial figure, though I have always kind of liked his architecture. He has been criticized for wasting space and designing buildings that are too large and inconvenient for the people who use them. But to me his architecture always had a touch of the same playfulness I always have liked in the archtecture of Antoni Gaudi. Of course Gaudi was ridiculed early in his career, too.
Too big and inappropriate for the community being built in are two criticisms of Gehry's work...and they describe Ratner's overdevelopment plan for Brooklyn, the so-called Atlatic Yard's project. This project has its own problems: size, excessive strain on Brooklyn's infrastructure, traffic concerns, the fact that taxpayers are being forced to buy the land for Ratner, etc. I always criticized the choice of Ratner to develop the area since he has a poor record of job creation, no experience building affordable housing and is best known for the god-awful, ugly mall that is the real blight on Central Brooklyn (reall a mutated mall merger of Atlantic Terminal Mall and Atlantic Center). Why would the State and City want the developer of such an ugly eyesore to develop a major part of Brooklyn?
But I never criticized the choice of Frank Gehry, who is after all a world class architect.
But now it seems Brooklyn may have some cause for concern about the choice of Gehry. It seems design flaws have plagued a building he designed for MIT. This comes from BBC News:
The suit, filed in Suffolk Superior Court in Boston on 31 October, seeks unspecified damages for costs and expenses incurred by the university.
It also alleges that the unconventional centre's outdoor amphitheatre began to crack due to drainage problems soon after it opened, and that mould grew on the centre's brick exterior.
The suit said Mr Gehry's firm, the Los Angeles-based Gehry Partners, "breached its duties by providing deficient design services and drawings".
We already know that Ratner's project will be a traffic nightmare and is likely to further overburden our aged sewer system. But perhaps there may be more problems than we expect due to design flaws? Brooklyn has both drainage problems and chronic problems with potentially deadly black mold (Stachybotrys chartarum). My building has had problems with both. So if Gehry doesn't take this into account in his designs, then it can be expected that Brooklyn will have the same problems MIT are having, only writ much larger.
All of this just adds to the very desperate need to stop the project in its tracks and begin the process anew with proper transparancy, community involvement, and oversight. Ratner's project hasn't even filed a business plan! This is being shoved down our throats with NO proper analysis or oversight. It isn't the only plan for developing the area. There are four plans and they each should be properly considered. The MIT lawsuit only adds one more reason to reconsider the Ratner plan very carefully. We really don't know what we are getting stuck with.
