Ratner 'Playing it Safe' With Atlantic Yards Design?

This morning the Wall Street Journal publishes a major critique of the designs for the first three Atlantic Yards towers following the release of new renderings for the project last month. The piece positions the first glimpse of SHoP Architects’ designs as “playing it safe,” particularly compared to Frank Gehry’s long-abandoned plans:

The apartment houses allude to the context that surrounds them, but are not of it. They still smack of the Manhattan-style modern buildings that have been popping up in nearby downtown Brooklyn ever since developers have realized that many of the city’s well-heeled jet set live across the East River. Brownstone Brooklyn makes a dignified statement with its housing stock, albeit a quiet, old-fashioned one. Atlantic Yards’ new plans show residential buildings that seem to be doing their best to hold their tongues, make nothing more than the blandest statement possible, and pray dearly not to offend the sensibility that has made Brooklyn so attractive to new residents in the past few decades. The message, unfortunately, sounds a lot like what Brooklyn heard when the Gehry plan was abandoned: Great architecture is still simply too expensive for the borough, even at its most important redevelopment project.

Reps from Forest City Ratner and SHoP say the setbacks on the buildings are meant to make the project play well with its surroundings.
Bruce Ratner’s Exercise in Bland [Wall Street Journal]