Pie In The Sky

Despite laying a sincere claim to many creative superlatives (see: thumbprint incense holders, bespoke Mezcal, personalized fragrance consultants) Williamsburg, Brooklyn has never been anything but a laughingstock when it comes to architecture. From the bland, ubiquitous, Karl Fischer buildings that litter the ‘hood like droppings (of the four vulgarities that befoul the Southern edge of McCarren Park along Bayard street, he designed three...); to the cocaine-and-herpes aesthetics of the William Vale Hotel; to the random, bloated paean to gentrification that is all of The Edge, Williamsburg has long seen the value of its creative class grossly ignored when it comes to architecture. Put simply, it's ugly.

The betrayal of aesthetics in our built environment has been so absolute that the knee-jerk reaction to any new building going up is invariably an exhausted, despairing resignation. Taking stock of the myriad projects underway confirms this reaction: there is little to laud, and much to moan (including yet another Karl Fisher excretion), and even when developers try to muster a bold counterargument as Two Trees/ SHoP Architects did with their Domino mega-development, the results are decidedly scattershot: While the beloved Domino Park and the yet-to-be realized Domino Factory may have real shots at excellence, the sheer scale of the towers that surround them is too egregious to appear as anything other than extrusions of capital, albeit masquerading as architecture.

So, it was with a certain sense of sweet confusion that I found myself walking alongside the massive new development just now coming online at 25 Kent, experiencing a strange and foreign feeling of “not-disappointment.” 25 Kent sits at the Northern edge of Williamsburg, across from what-we-are-told-will-oneday-be-a park, where it occupies an entire city block. The first new commercial building erected in Williamsburg in 50 years, 25 Kent is designed from the ground-up with an eye to catch the lucrative market of tech-startups, creatives, and “makers,” and boasts all sorts of geek-out standards such as LEED Gold certification, open floorplans, 15’ ceilings, bicycle storage, rooftop decks, etc.

What is remarkable is that these amenities are contained within a structure just may be the best thing to go up in Williamsburg since your rent. Much of this is due to the building’s approach to scale: While 25 Kent is massive, it gathers its bulk at the center, leaving its streetside elevations relatively low-slung. The effect is a building that does not overwhelm or scoff at the streetscape, but greets it with well mannered respect.

A perambulation of the building confirms that, despite being tasked with speculative, pricey, feed-the-egos construction, the architects may have actually spent time on their site, absorbing the meanings of the neighborhood. The brick used throughout, most prevalently along the East-West elevations, seems considerate. So do the modest setbacks that recede from the second floor, giving the whole structure a noble accord with the factories and warehouses along 12th and 13th, and the two-story rowhouses further afield that are the 11211’s housing stock-in-trade.

It’s a small but profound triumph, given the vulgarity with which most of the ‘Burg's new constructions loom over us. Looking down Berry, one can actually sense restraint, and a certain modesty -- especially when set in relief to the white vulgariity across the street:

Not that 25 Kent lacks in architectural swagger. Real-estate capital in modern New York all but demands the exclamatory flourish, and surely the skybridge of 25 Kent counts. Effectively connecting the building’s twinned, offset parcels, this ginormous wedge manages to convey the requisite sophistication, while still bearing surprise.

Sheathed in limousine-tinted glass, laced in black steel, this upside-down trapezium even boasts a quilted metal underbelly, conspicuously quoting such contemporary erections as The Shed in Hudson Yards (though, to my eye, the restrained use of this eye-catching bronze here works to the overall advantage of the building, whereas in Hudson Yards, it's all just too fucking much...).

It is from below, however, that this inverted ziggurat finds its finest purpose, as a roof over the passageway that tunnels underneath the hubbub above, yielding a small yet imaginative plaza. It is this plaza that is the building’s most unique contribution; which one hopes might one day be celebrated as excellent public space.

To qualify the boldness of that statement, let’s consider that wedge: Slashed directly through the heart of the building, like a giant truncated slice of pie, pointed down, its volume creates a half a football-field worth of covered space at the building's core. The shiny, reflective, downward-slanted surfaces lure you in with a braggadocious forced-perspective, while the bronze and brick provide warmth throughout. The elegant arched windows and granite cobblestones that line the plaza further soften the feel, recalling as they do the vanishing Brooklyn that this building is in the process of replacing.

The full effect is spectacular, yielding what just could be Williamsburg’s own version of the Dumbo Archway. The supersized soap-box at the plaza’s center should, if handled correctly, emerge as a locus of democratic agency and spectacle, worthy of a Walt Whitman, or at least an Ignatius J. Reilly.

And then there is the atmosphere: As a consequence of framing a passage from the East River in towards McCarren Park, this small, shaded plaza effectively acts as a breezeway (not to say wind tunnel), funnelling cool air the middle of July (and presumably lashing out with frigid fervor come December). The effect adds a palpable dimension to an already sensual place. One can imagine taking refuge here after a sweltering summer’s day in What-we-are-told-will-oneday-be-a Park. Equally, we can see windy Fall adventures, or hurricane refuge in this tempestuous space. It is open, and alive, and this possibly foolish flourish is exciting precisely because of how it flies in the face of the mandate that architecture should be seen and not felt, or for the client and not the public.

Still, this is a space that must be seen. Looking up, one is offered a spectacular reflection of the edge of Brooklyn, hovering like a dream before Midown Manhattan And if now, that edge is little more than rusty oil derricks and parking lots, this is where What-we-are-told-will-oneday-be-a Park is said to be. To bask under that sea of reflected green, engulfed in shade, as the East River’s breezes comb through your hair... it will be quite the poem on a summer’s day. Ice cream sandwich, anyone?

Of course, no architecture is critically immune. The reverse view from the passageway, thrusting back through the building’s bronze colon to face the trim, vulgar geometry of the William Vale, is a bit much. I’ll leave it to a more immature mind than mine to note the obvious, but, just…… ewwwwww!

There are other hiccups as well: The Easternmost slab, at 13th and Wythe, is downright gory, and the plazas at either end are meh, but these are small complaints against the glory of that underbelly. 25 Kent has created an intriguing public space, and any business savvy enough to locate there should benefit from the flow of ideas that precipitates out of it. Proximity to the people is worth a pretty penny. Let’s hope some benevolent enterprise prevails...after all, we can see you!