Being born in Manhattan, I consider forthrightness part of a New Yorker’s genetic makeup, especially when it comes to matters within my hometown, regardless of where one might momentarily be living around the globe. I shall therefore be forthright in my appraisal of the residential tower recently opened at 8 Spruce Street in Lower Manhattan that was designed by Frank Gehry. New York’s architectural critics have focused upon the most noteworthy feature of the building; its shimmering skin of stainless steel panels that is draped across all but one of the structure’s facades in a manner that Mr Gehry maintains was inspired by the sharp folds of fabric in the Baroque sculptures of Bernini. The effect is indeed lovely and – merely as facades go – truly an enlivening presence within the skyline of Manhattan.
However Mr Gehry and the triumvirate of New York critics who have written about the building – Nicolai Ouroussoff, Paul Goldberger, and Fred Bernstein – have missed a major failure of this project. Mr Gehry ends his tower with a horizontal edge, resolutely ignoring one of the principal characteristics that made pre-Modernist New York skyscrapers so distinctive: he fails to provide a suitable crown for the structure. The reason is not hard to fathom: the simplistic, dichotomous mindset that has ruled architects since Modernism that one is either “innovative” or a hopeless practitioner of retrogressive, nostalgic kitsch. Indeed, Nicolai Ouroussoff of The New York Times evinced this mindset in an article of 31 May 2008 when he stated that Gehry’s design “harks back to the euphoric aspirations of an earlier age without succumbing to nostalgia.” This atavistic fear of taking lessons from the past has resulted in countless skyscrapers in America since the onset of Modernism that usually end with a horizontal whimper or occasionally attempt to fashion a crown and fail miserably. Yet, as Louis Sullivan noted, a tall building naturally leads the eye upward, and such a building requires a suitable finish. A century later, no better resolution for skyscrapers has emerged, so why are we so reluctant to acknowledge this and then comprehensively incorporate this component into skyscraper design? Perhaps one should be glad that of all contemporary architects, Mr Gehry did not provide 8 Spruce Street with a Gehryesque flourish of a crown, but the question still remains: why are architects and architectural critics so maddeningly obdurate (if not downright incompetent) when it comes to addressing this issue?
Messrs. Bernstein, Goldberger and Ouroussoff are dazzled by the façade yet fail to see the complete object for what it is: yet another addition to the Manhattan skyline of a skyscraper that terminates with a dull, boring, horizontal thud. Especially given the wonderfully sculptural stainless steel panels that define this building’s exterior, imagine what Gehry could have wrought had he created a cascade of receding setbacks to form a crowning element on this edifice. Imagine what an addition to Manhattan’s skyline such a dynamic conclusion would have been. Perhaps our sensitivities have been dulled since New York rescinded its Setback Law of 1916 in 1961, resulting in a half-century of skyscrapers that usually end – but never resolve – with horizontal edges. A photograph that currently is part of The New York Times’ slide show about 8 Spruce Street may help reinvigorate readers’ visual acuity. Photographed several blocks away from 8 Spruce Street, it unintentionally underscores the deadening aspect of buildings that lack a crown, regardless how intriguing the façade might be. Readers may access it at: