Archive for reference

These pages are provided as an archive of the NAG blog on a previous system. Commenting is no longer available.

Are We Living In Karl Fischer City?

Curbed has a map pinpointing all of the projects of controversial and prolific architect Karl Fischer. Unsurprisingly, they are clustered in North Brooklyn. From the site of the former Greenpoint Terminal Market, to the condos lining McCarren Park, all the way south to Wallabout, this guy is designing a lot of what we are going to be looking at and walking past in the coming years. You may recall he is the man behind the hulking Schaefer Landing and the impetus for the contextual zoning on Grand Street.

The architecture blogs are uniformly disdainful of his work. His relatively-wide buildings lack any pedestrian oriented street-level presence-- something that we will be coming to strongly regret as more of these projects go up. Most of the buildings lack any affordable housing, because they are built in the upland area of the neighborhood and were grandfathered into the 421-a residential tax break (which now requires affordable housing). If analogous neighborhoods in Chicago and LA, like Wicker Park and Venice Beach, are building much better and more engaging architecture, what's wrong with North Brooklyn?

What do you think? Should we rename the area Fischerburg and Karlpoint?

-Mikki and Michael