A TALE OF TWO CITY PROJECTS

Photo: Unsplash

30 January 2012

From Michael Kimmelman of the New York Times:

"The lesson these two sites share has to do with the limits of architecture, socially and economically, never mind what some architects and planners promise or boast. The two projects, aesthetic cousins, are reminders that no typology of design, no matter how passingly fashionable or reviled, guarantees success or failure: neither West Village-style brownstones nor towers in the park nor titanium-clad confections. This is not to say architecture is helpless, only that it is never destiny and that it is always hostage to larger forces."

Two projects, similar types of urban design philosophies, one loved, the other… not.