Scarano as a 'Speculator's Auteur'
It seems like so many years ago, in the boom now past, that architect Robert Scarano was feverishly covered by this blog and just about every other media outlet in town for his aesthetics, interpretation of zoning laws, and his ultimate fall from grace with the Department of Buildings. And yet here we are in…
It seems like so many years ago, in the boom now past, that architect Robert Scarano was feverishly covered by this blog and just about every other media outlet in town for his aesthetics, interpretation of zoning laws, and his ultimate fall from grace with the Department of Buildings. And yet here we are in 2011 with a lengthy profile of Scarano’s legacy in the New York Times Magazine. The piece touches on people who discovered a hidden bathroom in a Scarano-designed building they purchased (“In the loft’s far corner, next to a washer-dryer, was the beige-tiled second bathroom. A contractor had finished the door, but otherwise, it was exactly as the couple had found it behind the drywall.”); Scarano’s defense of the spaces he constructed (“The volume of space and the way people feel in spaces that are more grandiose is quite different, and it affects the psyche”); and how the architect’s sullied reputation and designs have left some buyers and developers in the lurch, an example of the former group being people who thought they were sold two-bedrooms but now find they count as one-bedrooms for appraisal purposes. As for the developers, the article describes Scarano’s popularity with them as a “speculator’s auteur,” but some now say they were misled by the architect. For example, Isaac Fischman, the developer of 333 Carroll, above, which was hit with a stop-work order in 2008 over its Scarano-designed steel addition: “Fischman recently announced that all the steel will come back down, and he will convert the building to apartments while maintaining its existing dimensions. Fischman told me he lost ‘a serious amount of money’ to Scarano-related delays. ‘I was one of his victims,’ he said.”
The Supersizer of Brooklyn [NY Times]
Sorry, late to the game on one of my fav topics (was out of town w/ no internet access, God forbid)
Agreed with Ziggy and anyone who said this guy had it coming
Benson, there are 4 Scarano projects in my area. 3 have already had major repairs due to water infiltration. One was caught up in the “mezzanine-gate” and has been vacant since 2007 (remember “what’s the 211″ anyone).
And I don’t buy the ” I don’t build ’em, I just draw ’em” crap. He was partnered with the Developers Group, their construction companies and funders. All of them are responsible for the POSs they threw up (puked up, rather) all over Brooklyn.
Sue everyone- this is one of those times it is warranted. As slopefarm said- this guy put good architects out of business because he turned his back on being a professional and sold himself to developers like a $5 ho. And the developers knew what they were getting and deserve to be sued.
@Benson,
I have proof NOW! My wife and I purchased a condo in a Scarano building, and were sold a bill of goods by Isaac Fischman. Moved in 3 years ago, and from day 1 we noticed deficiencies in the building. There are now law suits over leaking roofs and terraces where the is no water membrane, the electrical is a mess, elevator failures on a weekly basis, our apartment has NO INSULATION in the exterior walls in addition to a majority of owners having faulty windows, mold issues, and the list goes on, and on…I would throttle these guys if I met them. So many tenants are left dealing with issues and paying out-of-pocket because of never-ending litigation. It just plain sucks. I will NEVER buy new construction in this city again-and highly warn others to do the same.
LOL.
Let’s flush the toilet and observe what happens!!!!!!!!!
Imby, are you saying Scarano’s bathroom = Schroedinger’s cat?
AFter seeing the jumble of photos in the NYT, I realized that not all his designs were half bad, irrespective of their legality.
I also didn’t know that the building on the north side of the MB was his.
I’m with montrose on this. The reason they all used Scarano is that no one else would sign off on the amount of FAR that he would. I know architects who kept losing jobs to Scarano because of this, and they could never figure out how he was getting around the zoning limits — they knew he was, just not how he was getting away with it. The developers who hired him were not naive. If three architects keep saying yu can’t have those two extra stories and only one says you can, you go with the one at your peril. After a while, it was pointless to interview the other three.
There are many well respected physicists who believe that more than one universe can exist within the same space, which ultimately will explain Scarano’s FAR calculations and bathrooms that simultaneously are and are not.