You might think the purpose of our historic districts is primarily to preserve worthy old buildings from destruction but the Landmarks Preservation Commission also influences the design of new construction in historic districts. In a 1970 architecture review, critic Peter Blake (who thought Brooklyn Heights was “about as historically precious as Cleveland”) praised the district’s restrictions for influencing the design of a modern new building at 119 Columbia Heights.

Much of the Brooklyn Heights neighborhood had been designated as the city’s first historic district in 1965. Around the same time — more than six decades after the Jehovah’s Witnesses made their headquarters in Brooklyn Heights, and four decades before they began to sell off their vast real estate holdings in the ‘hood — the religious organization decided to build a controversially modern dormitory at the corner of Pineapple Street and Columbia Heights.

In an effort to appease the neighborhood, the Witnesses agreed to use whatever architect the Brooklyn Heights Association recommended. In a surprising move, the BHA chose Ulrich Franzen, whose style tended toward the monumental and fortress-like. When the three-story building was unveiled in 1970, Peter Blake — an architect, critic, MoMA curator and writer — composed a gushing review of the structure for New York Magazine. Here are a few of our favorite highlights.

The BHA required that the new building “relate” to three adjacent brick row houses. According to Blake, the architect performed this admirably:

…Franzen solved it in three very sensitive ways: his new corner building was faced with a reddish-brown “iron-spot” brick that relates nicely to the various brick fronts up and down the street. Next, his new building has three “bay windows” that recall the bay windows on the three 19th-century houses to the south. And finally, his new corner building aligns its parapets with those of the adjoining historic structures — and recesses the necessarily higher floors so that they cannot be seen from the streets of Brooklyn heights.

But what’s with the tower-like volume directly on the corner?

The only exception is the corner: a symbolic “watchtower” that contains the fire stair required under our Building Code — and that, also, “celebrates” this corner, as Franzen puts it to me, or punctuated it and turns it into a new sort of landmark.

The trio of row houses next door aren’t exactly what they seem:

The three adjacent 19th-century houses, which were also acquired by the Witnesses, became a part of the new dormitory complex. The exteriors were retained and restored, but the interiors were turned into bedrooms for more of Jehovah’s missionaries.

Blake was a bit more scathing when it came to the interior of the building:

Franzen had very little to do with the interiors, which the Witnesses decorated, curiously enough, in a sort of cut-rate Hotel Americana style. There is one exception: a very nice, plastic-dome-covered swimming pool — which, it turns out, is a baptismal immersion facility that will accommodate 30 or more Witnesses at a time.

It isn’t until the end that we get to Blake’s thesis:

…What has happened here, really, is this: because somebody decided to declare Brooklyn Heights a special place, a very good architect was sought to reinforce that specialness. The resulting building, in fact, enhances the Heights; and if we keep on playing this game long enough, Brooklyn Heights may, some day — say around the year 2000 — emerge as  truly “historic” district.

Blake’s opinions go against convention. But what do you think of the building?

[Source: New York Magazine]

Related Stories
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Big-Name Developers Vie for Coveted Jehovah’s Witnesses Sites

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