Gehry’s involvement sold many skeptics on the development in the first place, the area doesn’t need a single architect for all 22 acres because a multiplicity of designers, or better, a variety of architects teamed up with different developers, would avoid the monotony of all such megaprojects and accelerate construction. I think Kimmelman lets the Barclays Center off too easily on some fronts-if the Times had had better coverage of arena operations, that would have been avoided-but I'm glad he waited until after the arena opened 9/28/12 to write, since he does acknowledge some lingering issues. It's by far the most wide-ranging, and thoughtful of the reviews, as it recognizes this fundamental fact: Atlantic Yards is not just an arena.Īnd if Kimmelman-who contrasts his starchitect-loving predecessors with a serious interest in larger issues of urbanism-only partly acknowledges episodes that are part of what I call the Culture of Cheating, he comes to a slyly subversive conclusion that surely infuriates developer Bruce Ratner : He suggests that, by hiring SHoP to wrap the much-derided Ellerbe Becket design, the architects "have created something tougher, more textured and compelling, an anti-Manhattan monument, not clad in glass or titanium but muscular and progressive like its borough."
New York Times architecture critic Michael Kimmelman finally weighs in with his review of the Barclays Center, saluting the arena for its design, fan experience, and operations-and calling it the antithesis of Madison Square Garden-yet raising significant doubts about the overall Atlantic Yards plan, both as urban design and urban planning.