8 Spruce Street - Beekman Tower - by Frank Gehry

[lofter1]

Gehry a modernist?

[TREPYE]

Again, you're just making stuff up as you go along. Since when was this supposed to be Gehry's masterpiece? This was his first skyscraper. He's not a skyscraper architect. His best designs are lowrise structures that don't have to bend to the stricter rules of highrise engineering.

All previous indications by him and the develper, even one that you posted...

Item in http://www.downtownexpress.com/

Developer Bruce Ratner said he expects to release renderings of Frank Gehry’s tower design for NYU Downtown Hospital’s parking lot site by the end of the year and he hopes the building will be seen as comparable to Lower Manhattan’s landmark Woolworth Building.

Community Board 1 and nearby residents at Southbridge Towers and on Nassau St. have raised objections to the building’s 700-foot height and the lack of proposed community space in the building. The building between Beekman and Spruce Sts. will have apartments as well as facilities for the hospital and Pace University.

Ratner described Gehry’s proposal as spectacular and beautiful. “The issue is design, not height,” Ratner told Downtown Express at a fundraising gala for the hospital Wednesday.

Ratner said the Downtown tower will curve in and out and he gestured in the shape of a woman to illustrate his point.

From http://cityrealty.com/new_developments:

The intricacy of Gehry’s design for 8 Spruce Street suggests that it will be a very fitting and stunning architectural descendant of Cass Gilbert’s masterpiece, the Gothic Cathedral-inspired Woolworth Building.

Fooled me I guess but all indications were that this was gonna be a stunner.

What in the hell are you talking about? Playing the mob?

I was not talking about community boards I was talking about the conformists in this forum that generally come out with comments like this

I'm saying "see no evil, hear no evil." It's more along the lines of "no harm, no foul."

No foul but ,again, lamentful that even a starchitecht like Gerhy cn get bent out of his dogmatic approach to his designs

For all of you who are getting upset that I am calling Gerhy out on his flip flop...

I give the words out of the man himself:

From The New York Times...

...In 2003 Mr. Ratner took another giant step, hiring Mr. Gehry to design Beekman, his first luxury residential tower. Beekman has been an education for Mr. Ratner. Mr. Gehry begins every project by asking questions. Why, for example, do all the apartments have to follow a standard cookie-cutter formula? Do walls have to be flat? Then he churns out dozens of variations on a design before he settles on a final form. Mr. Ratner's team evaluated each one for cost before Mr. Gehry returned to the drawing board. The back-and-forth went on for more than two years and 70-plus versions.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/04/ar...l?pagewanted=1

Would Frank Loyd Wright have deveiated the way Gerhy has??

[antinimby]

Gehry a modernist?

He didn't say Gehry was a modernist. He said TREPYE has a problem with modernism because that's all he whines about: boxiness and modernist designs.

TREPYE: you are so beyond ridiculous at this point. You have been nothing but an annoying, broken record for the last 5 pages.

Now you don't like it when some of us use harsher words for you but when several posters earlier told you nicely that you got your point across already and that some of us are already sick and tired of your repetitive whinings: Gehry is not a real architect because he yielded, Ratner is a cheap developer, the flat wall will be horrible....yadda, yadda, yadda.

[Jasonik]

You really need to let this go...

[sfenn1117]

It's painful reading this thread. Let go.

[Alonzo-ny]

Very rich Trepye, telling someone insulting others is wrong then doing it yourself. By the way 'repetitive hyperbole' isnt a personal insult. I have no problem with you discussing your gripes but you're doing it in a constant drama queen repetitive way. GET OVER IT the rest of us are trying to move on, or at least discuss it maturely.

[ZippyTheChimp]

Wow. A political reference. And for the record, I don't think anyone's actually "defending" anything. You think of it as trying to justify a wrongdoing, as if I'm saying "see no evil, hear no evil." It's more along the lines of "no harm, no foul."

My thoughts exactly, but I didn't see the point of bringing it up, given the direction this discussion was headed.

For all of you who are getting upset that I am calling Gerhy out on his flip flop...

No, I think the hostility toward you is rooted in your pompous assumption that anyone who has positive opinions of this building is:

an apologist
rationalizing
silver lining miner

You bring up Foster for comparison with Gehry, then when it's pointed out to you that Foster compromised his design, you offer a tortured explanation that Foster is not the artist Gehry is.

I'm not going to discuss the theory of flat vs wavy walls. We each have our own expectations of this building. Given that I thought the entire project was in jeopardy, I expected the worst leading up to the release of renderings; I was pleasantly surprised.

I'll reserve judgment on the final product when it's completed, just as I did with Hearst.

Let's move on.

[ablarc]

Would Frank Loyd Wright have deveiated the way Gerhy has??

Yes, but he would have lied about it.

[pianoman11686]

All previous indications by him and the develper, even one that you posted...Fooled me I guess but all indications were that this was gonna be a stunner.

Nice reference to cityrealty, the ultimate arbiter of good architectural taste.

I was not talking about community boards I was talking about the conformists in this forum that generally come out with comments like this

From what you've written, it sounds like you're saying Gehry's misrepresentation of the tower's design was not only intentional, but aimed to recruit the support of online architecture enthusiasts - as if that mattered with respect to, um, anything.

Do you realize how ridiculous that sounds?

[stache]

pianoman I am asking you to stop this line of debate. It is not serving this thread in any way shape or form. Thank you.

[ablarc]

Gehry a modernist?

Why not?

[TREPYE]

Yes, but he would have lied about it.

How so? Would he have produced a false rendering or something?

[stache]

TREPYE, you as well. Being argumentative is not moving the discussion forward. Please stop.

[Alonzo-ny]

Did the crane jump previously mentioned take place yet?

[Derek2k3]

The tower is already visible in the skyline from the Manhattan Bridge. Even with this downturn we will have plenty to watch.