Urban Architecture: The Absurdly Good, the Bad and the Stupid

Urban architects are mostly the lapdogs of real estate developers. (Actually, they are the whores of real estate developers, but, I don't want to disparage hard-working women by comparing them with the limp-minded men who design ever-taller, sky-and-sun-blocking phallic replacements.) Here are a few examples from each category in Brooklyn, NY. Absurd Architecture worthy of our love includes Cynthia and Arthur Wood's Broken Angel at 4 Downing Street in Clinton Hill. Though, the last we heard about the fate of this gem is that due to non-compliance with local building codes, the top two floors were to be removed and rebuilt and the rest of the building is to become condos, undoubtedly for more refugees from the suburbs who have just "discovered" Brooklyn. Absurdly Bad Architecture includes the Regal Cinema on Court Street in Brooklyn Heights. Deidre Carson, a lawyer who had previously represented other movie-theater developers and formerly the president of the Brooklyn Heights Association (a neighborhood organization originally created to protect the area from irresponsible development - ah, the irony!) actually had the gall to describe the building as a product of a "world-class architecture firm." What the hell does "world-class" mean anyway? If this building is any example, it means the biggest bull turd they can lay on you. Which brings us to Regal's bastard grandchild: Frank Gehry's absurdly stupid design for private-developer Bruce Ratner's proposed Atlantic Yards project. Designed to dwarf the brownstone neighborhoods nearby, Gehry himself called the project his, "ego trip" (shee-ut!) and our politicians greased their oily palms and pressed each others flesh in what has to be the most egregious crony love-fest ever attempted on the shores of Brooklyn. For all this and more, we hereby bestow a special Gamut Scabies Award to Bruce Ratner for trying to use eminent domain to steal, condemn and destroy people's homes to enrich himself. The following photos are: Broken Angel, Regal Cinema's UA Court Street Stadium 12, "Miss Brooklyn" and its architect, the penis-nosed Frank Gehry.