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December 14, 2006

184 Adelphi Showing Its True Colors

building
When we last checked in on 184 Adelphi Street last Summer, it was clad only in exterior insulation. Now it's got some kind of metal exterior. While we think the design is interesting in itself, we think it's less successful contextually than the nearby 364 Myrtle condos and the art studio on Vanderbilt. Regardless, we'd rather see a strong statement like this than a Fedders special.
Angles, Setbacks and Windows on Adelphi Street [Brownstoner] GMAP P*Shark DOB




Posted by Brownstoner at 9:35 AM | Comments (43)
Categories: Architecture

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Comments

i dont want to be a drag here but the art studios on vanderbuilt is just about the ugliest building i have ever seen. ugly and just a complete bummer to look at.

Posted by: gong song at December 14, 2006 10:01 AM

This building looks like someone opened it up with a can opener, didn't like what they saw inside, and then left it open. Ack.

Posted by: Shahn Andersen at December 14, 2006 10:05 AM

i take it that this part of Adelphi is not landmarked!.

I am definately not one of those people who thinks that anything new is bad but I think builders should really try and respect the style of the surrounding buildings. This just look odd stuck between all those brownstones.

Posted by: Anonymous at December 14, 2006 10:13 AM

Maybe it's just the angle of the photo, it doesn't look nearly as bad walking down the street.

Posted by: anonymous at December 14, 2006 10:18 AM

If the builders goal was to disguise his ugly new building as an ugly old remuddled brownstone he's succeeded admirably.

Posted by: Bob Marvin at December 14, 2006 10:19 AM

i agree w/ brownstoner- i'll take this over a fedder's building. but it looks very unfinished to me. i live a block away (our block is landmarked, this one isn't) and i was wondering if this was really the outer layer of the facade. i don't like it... but it could be worse.

Posted by: lc at December 14, 2006 10:20 AM

Met the owners a few months ago, this guy is hilarious. Some French guy is designing incredible building in Bed Stuy on Lafayette Avenue, supposedly with a glass facade. Richard Meier in Bed Stuy? Can someone investigate?

Posted by: Anonymous at December 14, 2006 10:31 AM

Maybe it would look cool on it's own, but it really doesn't fit in with the surrounding buildings. Hate to say it, but a Fedders building might even look better in this place, as it least they are brick. Ok, bring it on....I can take it!

Posted by: Anonymous at December 14, 2006 10:56 AM

I like it!!

Posted by: Anonymous at December 14, 2006 11:04 AM

The windows are awful. I don't hate the material (from what I can tell), and the design doesn't totally suck. Replace the windows!!!

Posted by: Robot at December 14, 2006 11:09 AM

I like the shape.

Frankly it stounds out mostly because of the color. A darker shade would make it blend in better.

Posted by: Anonymous at December 14, 2006 11:10 AM

I don't dislike it, but it looks very out-of-place on that block.

Posted by: Anonymous at December 14, 2006 11:13 AM

This might have worked a whole lot better if they had different windows. It looks retarded right now. the windows should have been bigger with aluminum frames and horizontal instead of the ye old double hung.

Posted by: Anonymous at December 14, 2006 11:15 AM

The materials on this building are totally out of context, and construction-wise looks to be of poor quality. I'd take a Fedder's building over someone's poor design skill. Just beacuse it looks "modern" doesn't mean it's well-done or even good!

Posted by: Anonymous at December 14, 2006 11:16 AM

I like it. I think it makes a statement without trying to. Sure, it's a bit out of context. But no one can really complain because the block wasn't landmarked.

I actually enjoy stumbling upon one of these buildings every now and then. I find the juxtaposition appealing but would personally find an entire block of modern structures like these to be nauseating.

Posted by: Anonymous at December 14, 2006 11:42 AM

I enjoy the contrast with the surrounding buildings also-- it's more interesting than a new building built to look old. I certainly like it better than Fedders-- it has a design that took some consideration and creativity, which wins a lot more points in my book than a standard brick building that blends in with its neighbors. You can't build a 19th century building today, so why pretend to? I wonder what they've done with the inside.

Posted by: Anonymous at December 14, 2006 11:54 AM

Looks like something that a tribeca/soho 'loft' lover would build. Isn't it interesting how people with widely divergent world outlook can coexist next door to each other and somehow the mix still works.

Whenever I stumble across one of these, I file it under the 'general neighborhood improvement' log and I breathe a sigh of relief.

But I guess the real question is whether or not someone walking through the neighborhood 20 years from now will still see this as a general neighborhood improvement or as a ridiculous oddity.

Also, will the resale of these modern buildings keep up or outstrip their victorian brownstone neighbors.

Posted by: Anonymous at December 14, 2006 11:54 AM

10:56, I actually agree with you!

Posted by: Anonymous at December 14, 2006 12:06 PM

Me too 12:06. Fedder better. Metal finish don't jive w/ that of concrete & masonry.

Posted by: Anonymous at December 14, 2006 12:47 PM

This one in Greenwich Village is much better (and has aged much better than I think this new one will):

http://www.nyc-architecture.com/GV/GV024-18West11thSt.htm

Posted by: Anonymous at December 14, 2006 1:35 PM

I don't love it -- agree with the above post about the windows -- but I like it and wish I saw more new builds like this. To my eye, all those new buildings that almost-but-not-quite fit in with the block (the brown stucco, beige brick, etc) are much more jarring in a row of brownstones than something that makes a direct contrast. If you're not going to build a 19th-century brownstone in 2006--and you're not--then build a 21st-century building.

If you honestly prefer Fedders buildings to this, then God bless you, you deserve them, and you'll get your wish many times over.

Especially like the metal. So there.

Posted by: linusvanpelt at December 14, 2006 2:03 PM

I'm waiting for him to finish before I decide. I'm told there will be a second type of metal involved (trim?).

Though, for the moment, it does look like someone laid into it with a dull can opener.

Posted by: Anonymous at December 14, 2006 2:13 PM

I like mixing old and new. But rowhouse blocks have an inherent rhythm, so IMHO there has to be something that ties the new in with the old. This building doesn't have a stoop, the windows don't line up with those on the other buildings, it's taller and doesn't have a cornice, isn't brick and doesn't have a flat facade. A new building doesn't need to have all or even most of these features, just enough of them so that the new building is part of the ensemble. 1:35 stole my thunder, but s/he is so right. If you aren't familiar with the building that replaced the one the Weathermen accidently blew-up, you owe to yourself to go to that URL.

Posted by: Anonymous at December 14, 2006 2:32 PM

1:35 & 2:32 - The Greenwich Village precedent was the first thing I thought of too. Of course there, the design makes specific reference to the history of the site - it was where the Weather Underground had a bomb-making mishap and blew up the entire brownstone.

That site was (is) also in a Landmark district.

Posted by: Halden at December 14, 2006 2:47 PM

You'll take this over a Fedders building. Grow up you people are completely nuts. This is far uglier.

Posted by: anon at December 14, 2006 2:51 PM

I pass by the building all the time, and shudder when I do. While the building is interesting in its own right, and would sit well in Venice Beach or other architectually diverse places, it is distrurbingly out of place. It bothers me as much as the Pink brownstone in Park Slope!

Posted by: Anonymous at December 14, 2006 3:06 PM

yeah, but at least the pink house can be re-painted or you can strip the paint.
This building, for some reason, reminds me of the quasi-modern building on hanson place (i.e., the one across from Mocada).

Posted by: Anonymous at December 14, 2006 3:15 PM

The windows are poor (in choice of material and size), but the massing in general is interesting and crisp. At least in design it is not bad -- will wait to see it with my own eyes with regard to execution.

--an architect in Brooklyn

Posted by: Anonymous at December 14, 2006 4:49 PM

the strong statement i see oozing out of this architects' drugtaking is "i don't give a shit how atrocious this looks"....there's a sucker born every minute.

Posted by: adriennui at December 14, 2006 8:16 PM

I like contemporary architecture, but I think we have to ask ourselves what we would think of this contemposeur building robbed of its context - the surrounding prewar buildings. Do architects think that this fashion of circumstance will inhibit people from examining the structure alone? Too many rely upon this self-defeating aesthetic of overt contrast. Design has to endure the notion of duplication, and duplicated, this building would just fking suck.

Posted by: matthew remy at December 14, 2006 11:26 PM

I think it's better than a lot of other buildings going up these days. However, I think they should have reconsidered those windows. Too conventional and generic for the look they are going for. If you're gonna break the fabric of the neighborhood, at least do it right!

Posted by: Anonymous at December 14, 2006 11:59 PM

this building is a mess. a very stupid piece of architecture designed by an immature talent acting out like a brooklyn hipster who dyes their hair red.. what a blight upon the neighborhood.
give me a fedder building any day. they may be horrible but on some level they are honest. this building is merely horrible by an architect who is merely vain.

Posted by: rodger at December 15, 2006 9:53 AM

It ruins the ambience of the whole block with its show-offy bullhshit. Architects seem to take pleasure in that.

Posted by: Zizzle at December 15, 2006 10:48 AM

for all you nostalgics out there, this is not the 19th century, building techniques and materials have changed-not ot mention the way we live. fedders projects and similar developer driven crap are in many ways the reason why new york has such sub par architecture when compared to other world( and US) cities. this house is interesting, and who says it needs to be duplicable? It is site specific, and while it may clash and have bad windows(ye olde double hung) it certainly has no obligation-legal or otherwise- to try to be a pastiche of anachronistic styles so that you can bask in the glow of your nostalgia. this country used to admire innovation and progress, and our departure from those values to a system of values that attempts to harken back to a "better" time has diminished our standing as a world leader in almost every field. must we live in one huge manicured diorama?

Posted by: jelly donut at December 15, 2006 1:37 PM

jelly donut, most of the "sub par" architectural status of US city compared to other world cities is due to the fact that the US had destroyed most of its older architectural heritage.

Posted by: Anonymous at December 15, 2006 5:57 PM

the building doe not comply with quality housing street wall requirements. any answer for that?????

Posted by: Anonymous at December 15, 2006 8:13 PM

*agree with jelly donut - it is important to allow such buildings to coexist with the well-preserved old in new york in order to allow further development of architecture that is aesthetically whole and relevant to today. This building remains highly dependent on its own renegade clash with the surrounding houses and would lose all value without its current arrangement, but I'm being idealistic and unfair to a city whose complexion is so far behind. There is too much preserved in New York simply because it is old, instead of being genuinely architecturally valuable. In Europe, only half of these 19thCen. buildings would have been allowed to survive - those that were actually specimens of good architecture in their day - and that is exactly why contemporary architecture has progressed beyond what the above building represents in places like Berlin or Milan. Even cities in so-called "second-world" countries like Mexico City, Sao Paulo, Cairo and Bangkok are far ahead of New York, offering brilliant embodiments of today's period to withstand the ages. However crappy this particular example - and many other examples - are, they should be allowed to awkwardly CLASH so that one day, through progression, buildings will artfully CONTRAST, as they do in so many other cities.

Posted by: Matthew Remy at December 16, 2006 1:15 PM

True that we have destroyed great buildings-Penn Station for one. Mistakes have been made. But the reason this city is architecturally mundane is not because we lost a entire city of great buildings-we didn't, it is because of the level of mediocrity of the the buildings that have been built in the name of contextualism-and capitalism. I am all for preservation of significant historical architecture. I think brownstones are great. However, given the option to build a replica of a brownstone or to build something that while referential is not direct mimicry, I would aways choose to do something more interesting-even if that means you "break the rules".
Do you think every great building in the city was received with rave reviews on opening day?
All I am saying is that we should not be so quick to spew venom at everything contemporary and new that attempts to elevate design above its currently inferior level so prevalent in this city. You might not like it, I might not, but the point is to be more open minded about what may or may not be appropriate in today's NYC.

Posted by: jelly donut at December 16, 2006 3:10 PM

He has the best sidewalk shed...evah!!!!!

Posted by: Anonymous at December 17, 2006 2:12 AM

good windows could have really saved this one...

Posted by: pfa at December 17, 2006 11:40 AM

the house to me is very nice. And welllll done so dont hate.

Posted by: yvette at December 19, 2006 10:51 PM

Its great to see the progress of this - I remember seeng the blue prints of this - WOW - L@@K at you now! I can't wait to come to the BIG NYC and see this for myself. We love it - its all GOOD IN DA HOOD - BIG UPS.

Posted by: trace & Chris at December 21, 2006 10:54 PM

I like the house also. Took a tour a few days ago and once complete, the inside will be elegant with an artistic flair. The exterior will be more of a rust color which should blend in with the neighboring brownstones. Plus, if the owner decides to rent or sell units, KA-CHING!

Posted by: jesseb at February 22, 2007 4:06 PM

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