Scarano: Licensed to Ill?
New York has a piece this week about how Robert Scarano may get his architecture license revoked. That’s not really news, but it gives the mag an excuse to rate Scarano’s buildings according to a “Shoddy Meter” (53 Java, where a truck recently overturned and damaged a neighboring building, gets top shoddy honors, beating out…
New York has a piece this week about how Robert Scarano may get his architecture license revoked. That’s not really news, but it gives the mag an excuse to rate Scarano’s buildings according to a “Shoddy Meter” (53 Java, where a truck recently overturned and damaged a neighboring building, gets top shoddy honors, beating out 333 Carroll Street, above). In the most interesting bit of the article, Scarano defends himself by saying his work as an architect doesn’t have bearing on all aspects of individual construction jobs. To say that the architect has some all-encompassing role in the overall construction activity is not the way that this process happens, he says. I am confident that the work we do is proper, accurate, complete, and meets all of the requirements of the zoning resolutions and build codes. (Numerous architects have made the same point in this forum.) And so it remains to be seen whether the state’s education department agrees with him.
De Blasio Continues To Go After Scarano [Brownstoner]
He Built This Borough (Badly) [NY Magazine]
so 11:24, tell me why in multiple buildings that scarano has built, he was forced, after construction, to build plywood boxed floors into his “mezzanine” spaces in order to obtain a (temporary) C of O?
Seriously, back up your claims as to how Carroll Street is illegal and quit your false comments. The building could be taller, LEGALLY! If it blocks your view, tough luck it’s NYC.
Hi, 10:48. 10:26 here.
It’s sometimes just too hard to avoid the trollbait that is Scarano. My bad.
Agreed on a lot of your points. I actually can’t stand FLW. The Guggenheim in particular is an architectural attention whore. It’s almost like Wright couldn’t live with the idea that the art would be the focus and not his building. Nothing like screwing people with a giant screw.
And certainly the architect isn’t responsible for every action on the job site, but Scarano’s casual dismissal of anything that happens on buildings he’s associated with is suspect as hell. It’s not like anyone’s forcing him to only design buildings for shysters, tho his choices might be limited these days.
Still, I think the ‘lying down with dogs’ at this point has to be taken in the Biblical sense.
Yet another defamatory comment. The man has not broken any laws, as has been said before 333 Carroll Street could have been much higher.
The use of mezzanines is not a loophole, it is specifically addressed in the zoning code.
Give it up!
RS has been breaking the zoning laws over and over again. 333 Carroll Street is a perfect example of how long it took the DOB to stop an illegal construction project. He must have a really good ‘friend’ woking there to have been able to do this for so long. Those who defend him either as 10:26 says ‘are high’ or are not around any of his wonderful law-breaking buildings. The loop holes he uses are wrong and it’s about time he was prevented from working in this town. Please, don’t defend this man. He is fully responsible for the illegal designs of all of his buildings.That’s why he gets the gig.
At least 17 of Scarano’s 299 city projects were bigger than they could be by law, according to charges filed by the Department of Buildings.
http://www.brooklynpaper.com/stories/29/16/29_16nets6.html
10:26 – yes, many of us have defended RS on the issue of architect’s control over what happens on the job sites. Yes, there is a certain “lie down with dogs” relationship between architect and developers who choose him (well put, 9:19). 10:11 hits the nail on the head, when he says that the real issue is whether or not false plans were filed.
And FLW did design a lot of crappy buildings. Just look at the engineering heroics that have been undertaken to keep Falling Water from, well, falling into the water. The Guggenheim, too, is a mess; his buildings are notorious for chronic roof leaks. The difference is that Wright designed crappy buildings from an engineering point of view (largely because he was pretty far out on the cutting edge). The problem with Scarano’s projects is, I suspect, mainly in the execution, not the design details. And that goes back to the developers, and the contractors and subcontractors they hire.
None of that means that FLW and RS are on par as designers, but that’s not what the original poster implied. And even Brownstoner has acknowledged some well-designed Scarano buildings (I think there are a good number of well-designed Scarano buildings, though many dogs as well. Overall, though, his firm is designing better looking buildings than the average architects active in Brooklyn. Damning with faint praise, maybe, but that’s my opinion.)
To a large extent, RS is the poster boy for bad development. I think a lot of his zoning tricks are illegal, and for that he may lose his license. But a lot of what is being laid at his feet are failings of the City (DOB is a facilitator, not a regulator), the developers and the contractors.
Put it this way: Scarano did not drive the truck into 53 Java, but he did bend (or break) the zoning rules in designing 333 Carroll.
Highly amused by all these Scarano apologists. The guy’s a douchebag, and you want to compare him to Frank Lloyd Wright?
You people are *high*.
My dealer must be the Scarano of drugs, because what I’m smoking is really sub-par compared to some of your stashes.
They forgot to mention the disaster unfolding on Carroll between 4th and 5th.