Welcome to the FantasyDome: Frank Gehry’s New Atlantic Yards Renderings

[slightly edited repost from the DDDB email list]
In Monday’s NY Daily News, Forest City Ratner released new renderings of Frank Gehry’s designs for three buildings in the Atlantic Yards luxury housing disaster’s Phase 1 (the arena, “Miss Brooklyn” now renamed–simply–Building One, and one other building.) MAS’s “Atlantic Lots” renderings in the Post and the new Gehry designs were the substance of what NoLandGrab.org aptly described as a “Monday Morning Tabloid War“.

Described as “ridiculous,” “ugly,” and “awful” by experts and random New Yorkers, the new red, white and blue building designs have not been well received; the reception has been even worse than that accorded the poorly received earlier redesign released in May 2006. (The new Port Authority chief, Chris Ward, doesn’t like the redesign either.)

Most telling about the floundering state of the project is that though Phase 2 comprises the bulk of the project, the new designs only show Phase 1. Both Phase 2 and the building planned for Site 5 (where the PC Richards and Modell’s on Flatbush currently stand) were left out of the new renderings. Also absent is the existing and surrounding neighborhood — the model floats in a dark, decontextualized void.