That’s a lovely way to rebuild the Old World urbanism destroyed by WWII bombings, but it’s not a model that’s suitable for a 21st century city. All of those are either infill or a direct recreation of something that was destroyed by bombing. Great for parts of Europe, maybe even could work for some areas of NYC, but would be inappropriate on a large scale for a number of functional, aesthetic, and economic reasons in this day and age.
Also, I don’t see Europe building any new traditionalist buildings in their CBDs like La Defense, City of London, etc. That’s because clients still like large windows and open floor plans.
NY is an old world city though. Many of those European cities might be old on a map but many of the buildings were built around the same time as many NY buildings.
Both of you guys need to realize the more things change the more they stay the same. As an example, whenever we start a permanent presence on the moon for industry, it will just incentivize more density in the long run because the perception will be that there’s a ton more sprawl we could take up. Now, in reality, the moon has only around a quarter the surface area that we have of land on earth, but the perception is there. In short, with a greater perceived amount of land to physically explore and inhabit ourselves, the perception will be there that we have that much less of a reason to limit the growth of our population. Use that as you guys will.
Well, I’ll just sum up what I think about aesthetics, feel free to disagree: mandating any particular architectural style is bad in most circumstances. The best cities have multiple eras of architecture that overlay and play off each other: parts of NYC, Boston, SF, & London are like this. Revivalism has its place in a few contexts (like here at The Bellemont!) but doesn’t seem suitable on a large scale. And lastly, you can like both old and new buildings! I certainly do. Both modern and traditional design (completely amorphous terms btw) have their place in a city. Thanks for the interesting discussion guys!
Anyway, The Bellemont looks nice. RAMSA does fine revivalist work with just enough modern touches. Looking forward to seeing more of that limestone facade.
I want to see more of this. Whatever hybrid style of architecture this is, I want to see more of it. I think it complements rather than clashes and i think everyone loves harmony. The more I think about it my argument comes down to glass. I’m just tired of walls of glass. Nice discussion though. Someone needs to come and cleaned this thread up of all these random pics
Great building! Not sure who the architect is but Morris Adjmi does similar work–very high quality contextualism that’s not quite modern or revivalist. He’s one of the best architects in NYC right now.
The red brick issue that started this commentary is a co-op and, therefore, like all others of that era, it will infest our streets forever. It would be very hard for a developer to buy all of the units.
A very limited number of those 1950s/60s brick buildings are doomed by virtue of ground leases, but that’s a rarity.
DeSelby—I think you have a wonderful job describing building styles that work, the beauty of a variety of architectural movements, the greatness of some neighborhoods with both similar and different forms, and the need for tolerance about variety and change. Great cities have fabric and variation, not any particular kind of must-do architecture. Thanks.
We also have to recognize that we do have a good amount of “nuclear options” when it comes to the construction of badly-needed new housing, especially in those midcentury mid-rise developments. Try and delay those strategies as much as possible of course, try and get as much use from the other strategies, but recognize that they are always there on standby. The expansion of Marcus Garvey Village is the perfect example of the opposite of Cooper Park; Injecting high density into a low-density development.
Just thought about this a little more and wanted to point out what cities like Paris did. They “curated” their city. They built a modern district for the 21st century and kept a huge pre-war part of the city historic.
When you walk into a museum they have different wings for different periods. All the paintings aren’t jumbled together. I think the idea of cities doing the same is whats most effective from an aesthetic standpoint. Museums are proof of that, and what are cities if not living architecture museums.
