Davidson and Goliath. (SVA)

Our colleague Jonathan Liu has a nice appraisal in this week's culture pages of what it means to be the architecture critic at The Times and whether Michael Kimmelman is up to the task. Mr. Kimmelman replaces the oft-maligned Nicolai Ourousoff, who stepped down last month, and over here at the real estate desk we have been hearing much the same thing: It is borderline offensive that The Times promoted an arts writer to cover architecture, but let's hold out hope because he can't be much worse than his predecessor.It's true, in the age of Twitter and blogs and what have you, who really needs any critic, let alone one writing about architecture? Still, Mr. Liu does a fine job explaining why:

Since 1963, there have been seven mayors of New York City, eight governors of New York State, nine U.S. presidents and four architecture critics at The New York Times. The longevity of its incumbents hints at the singularity of the office: they’ve shaped what counts as architecture to the masses—housewives and students, investment bankers and construction workers—who don’t consciously think about architecture until it shows up on their block. Like a Japanese emperor or the most imperial of those aforementioned pols—think Rockefeller Era, Giuliani Time, Reaganomics—the name of the reigning Times critic is easy shorthand for the fashions and passions of the epoch, and not just in buildings.

[...]

His successors, [former critic Paul] Goldberger noted, may have simply followed the general trend at The Times—that to survive, it would have to be a national, or international, paper. It’s perhaps a sign both of the success of that effort and of the prestige Ms. Huxtable’s original creation still commands that people in Beijing and Bilbao and Dubai and Detroit care what a critic in New York thinks about their built environment.

The problem remains that we New Yorkers wind up neglected.

Even if Mr. Kimmelman can surpass Mr. Ouroussoff, well, it seems hard to believe he will. Not only is he not trained in architecture, but his last posting was as a roving European art critic. His column was called "Abroad." If you're looking for a critic who "has been to Brooklyn," as architecture writer Alexandra Lange puts it to Mr. Liu, this does not seem like a promising start.

If you want to find that critic, one who cares about "indomitable knowledge of zoning laws, block-level history and City Council minutiae," as Mr. Liu puts the qualifications of the Times' first critic Ada Louis Huxtable, turn not to the paper of record but New York magazine. That is where Justin Davidson has been opining in Ms. Huxtable's persnickety tradition for four years now.

Just the other day, he wrote about something as banal as a single city block on Broadway and the tragedy of its impending loss.

Lately, a new wound has opened on the east side of Broadway, between 77th and 78th Streets. One of the last full hodgepodge blocks of low-rise buildings and small shops has that familiar ghost-town look that precedes obliteration. Once, the restaurant Ruby Foo’s, the Manhattan Diner, a Così sandwich bar, a Tae Kwon Do school, the Curl Up & Dye hair salon, a watch-repair service, a travel agency, a jewelry­making school, a pizza joint, a Subway, the World of Nuts & Ice Cream, and a jewelry shop were all crammed into 200 feet of frontage. A dozen businesses, catering to vanity, hunger, creativity, and the pursuit of health, have vanished. It’s a common tale, and the ending is almost always the same: a teeming commercial ecosystem gives way to a pair of vast establishments, stretching from corner to mid-block.The new building is planned “as of right,” meaning that it requires no special permission, and will almost certainly be approved. If the developer, Friedland Properties, had to apply for a variance, a tax break, a change in zoning, or approval to build in a historic district, it would have to negotiate and compromise, but there’s no need for that here. Friedland hasn’t released plans and doesn’t return calls, and the Department of Buildings application is sketchy, so preparations for dismemberment will likely be under the radar, at least until the jackhammers start.

There are two compelling reasons to mourn this block’s destruction. The first is that Broadway’s small businesses are being choked out not by inexorable Darwinism but because landlords and developers almost always prefer to sign a long-term lease with a clean, quiet, stable, and heavily capitalized corporation rather than risk renting to an amateurishly run boutique or a potentially odoriferous diner.

Now that's architecture, and without even a boldface name or a fanciful design (guilty as charged) to carry the day. Sure, he dips into this territory, too, but always with care and conscience. If you haven't already, go read him now.

mchaban [at] observer.com | @MC_NYC

He weighs in today with a review he knows many have been waiting for—"Many New Yorkers have been following the construction of the new residential tower at 8 Spruce Street, just south of City Hall, with a mix of awe and trepidation," it opens—and the verdict is, not unsurprisingly for the starchitect worshipper, a positive one.

Yet it is not Ouroussoff's opinion of the building in particular that interests The Observer—he calls it "the finest skyscraper to rise in New York since Eero Saarinen's CBS building went up 46 years ago"—but his idea of what the building symbolizes.

8 Spruce Street seems to crystallize a particular moment in cultural history, in this case the turning point from the modern to the digital age.

[...]

The power of the design only deepens when it is looked at in relation to Gilbert's Woolworth building. A steel frame building clad in neo-Gothic terra-cotta panels, Gilbert's masterpiece is a triumphant marriage between the technological innovations that gave rise to the skyscraper and the handcrafted ethos of an earlier era.

Mr. Gehry's design is about bringing that same sensibility--the focus on refined textures, the cultivation of a sense that something has been shaped by a human hand - to the digital age. The building's exterior is made up of 10,500 individual steel panels, almost all of them different shapes, so that as you move around it, its shape is constantly changing. And by using the same kind of computer modeling that he used for his Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, more than a decade ago, he was able to achieve this quality at a close to negligible increase in cost.

Do you hear that, developers of New York City? It is fully within your ability to design not only better but world-class buildings without sacrificing the bottom line. In fact, you will probably bolster your bank account by doing so. Look no further than Durst Fetner's Bjarke Ingels project on West 57th Street, which we declared the marker of a new era only two days ago. Or the news since then that SHoP is designing vast housing projects in Queens and Brooklyn.

With some luck, intelligence and a little talent, this is not only the beginning of a new digital age of architecture in New York but also a better one.

mchaban [at] observer.com | @mc_nyo

- Max Abelson

- Max Abelson

This weekend's New York Times magazine is all about architecture. It's definitely thinner than the big real estate special issue (although there are still plenty of ads, including a seven-page spread for the Frank Gehry jewelry collection).

All the big guns were pulled out for this one: Michael Kimmelman (Turbulence House), Nicolai Ouroussoff (Beirut architecture), and Devan Sudjic (architectural debate). And there's lots more.

- Michael Calderone

For a while, the conversation glided effortlessly through Mr. Gehry’s oeuvre, complete with an introductory slideshow of renowned works--from the Guggenheim Bilbao to the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles.

But then Mr. Ouroussoff turned his attention to Mr. Gehry’s controversial Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn. The negative reaction should not have been too surprising: Some bitter residents wore antagonistic t-shirts and stickers condemning the project (i.e. “Welcome to Ratnerville”). Also in attendance, blogger Norman Oder--a critic of both the development and the New York Times coverage--reported in depth on some of the project’s specifics that the architect tried to address.

A self-professed “do-gooder, lefty type,” Mr. Gehry spoke of the future Nets arena and, and shockingly blurted out, “First of all, it’s an empty site.” A handful of jeers followed. Admitting he was getting into “deep shit,” Mr. Gehry switched gears and said that the project will be built in an “existing neighborhood.”

Pleading his case, Mr. Gehry emphasized trying to “break down the scale” of the massive development, using various materials, and dealing with residential concerns that could arise with a basketball arena nearby.

“If a guy comes home from work and he wants to cool out, he’s not barraged by imagery and bright lights,” he said.

Next, Mr. Ouroussoff brought up other less-controversial topics, but the table was set for a rowdy Q&A period, where four critics of developer Bruce Ratner’s project hurled questions at the 76-old architect. Mr. Gehry said that the developer was “politically like me,” and “if it got out of whack with my own principles, I would walk away.”

But that didn’t appease everyone.

First, a Brooklyn architect aficionado accused Mr. Gehry of operating in a “non-Jane Jacobs” manner, with superblocks destroying the “existing neighborhood.” When asked what he would build instead, the questioner ventured into a lengthy explanation that irritated some audience members who had sought a mild-mannered, 92nd Street Y sort of affair. Or at least one where the celebrity speaker gives detailed thoughts on architecture, rather than an unknown audience member.

Next, Peter Krashes, President of the Dean Street Block Association, brought up the Atlantic Yards. (Afterwards, Mr. Krashes confronted Mr. Gehry while signing autographs. Mr. Gehry said he would meet with the community group only after first getting clearance from Jim Stuckey, Vice President of Forest City Ratner).

During the Q&A, Mr. Krashes asked several uncomfortable questions. Not surprisingly, Mr. Gehry’s genial manner abruptly changed.

“It’s not fair to nail me on this here,” he exclaimed. “Let’s do it another time.”

The audience, who each dropped $35 a head to hear Mr. Gehry speak, began clapping loudly and consistently, until Mr. Krashes finally sat back down. The fourth (and final) question about Atlantic Yards mentioned “eminent domain abuse,” effectively closing the subject.

“No comment,” said Mr. Gehry tersely.

Noticeably upset, Mr. Gehry even asked Mr. Ouroussoff at one point if they were almost done with the entire discussion. Finally, the architecture critic ended the unpleasant ordeal, and Mr. Gehry quickly exited the stage.

If only the audience could have stuck to simple questions, like advice to a young architect, being a guest on The Simpsons or hanging out with Brad Pitt.

-Michael Calderone

-Matthew Schuerman

So when Nicolai Ouroussoff, The New York Times ’ newish architecture critic, described such a scenario in a Sept. 5 article about the changing Manhattan skyline, it sparked a certain amount of intrigue in architecture circles.

Mr. Ouroussoff was referring to the new Goldman Sachs headquarters planned for lower Manhattan, a 40-story, two-million-square-foot tower designed by Harry Cobb of Pei Cobb Freed, scheduled to begin construction early next year. Mr. Ouroussoff described the building as having a residential tower set on top of the building’s base of offices where employees could potentially buy or rent apartments. The idea of people living above one of the most secretive and prestigious investment banks in the world would be revolutionary, to say the least.

But lest Goldman’s heavily worked, heavily paid employees become too excited at the prospect of reducing their commutes, it was too good to be true.

"We do not have any plans for any residential space in the building whatsoever," said Andrea Raphael, a Goldman spokeswoman. She was not sure how Mr. Ouroussoff got the impression that residences were part of the plan, which is referred to as "Site 26."

The site is zoned for commercial use only and is intended to house Goldman’s armies of traders in six trading floors at the base of the building, with offices and conference rooms in the floors above. The 742-foot-tall tower is meant to consolidate Goldman’s current corporate space, which is spread between 85 Broad Street, 1 New York Plaza and other locations around the city, in addition to a new tower that the company just constructed in Jersey City.

Mr. Ouroussoff, who left the L.A. Times in June to replace The New York Times ’ outgoing controversial architecture critic, Herbert Muschamp, was out of town and didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Calls to several Manhattan brokers suggested that there had not yet been a run on the ghost apartments, but that if they existed, they might have sold well.

"I don’t think New Yorkers are that concerned about what is in the lower part of the building, as long as it’s not something crazy and disruptive to their daily lives. Let’s face it, at Time Warner you have bomb-sniffing dogs walking through the lobby on a regular basis," said Leonard Steinberg, a senior vice president at Douglas Elliman. "So I don’t think a bank necessarily would be the worst tenant. In fact, a lot of buildings, co-ops and condos in Manhattan, love to get a bank into their commercial space because it’s a very low-impact traffic situation. I do think the value lies more in the fact that you’d have higher floors with better light. A lot of the Wall Street buildings right now that are residential do have a terrible disadvantage on their lower floors in that they have dreadful light."

Perhaps Goldman employees had expressed interest in the mysterious units?

Not so, according to Ms. Raphael. "People noticed, but people didn’t overreact to it," she said, adding that those in the upper reaches of the firm had been slightly surprised to read the startling details about their new building.

The idea of having workers bunking down above their place of work is nothing new. One of modernism’s greatest triumphs was in the idea of worker housing communities, where laborers could live in little villages adjacent to their factories. This idea has recently been embraced by more capitalist ventures, such as the Time Warner Center, which has luxury condos mixed in with a shopping mall and CNN’s corporate offices, as well as the proposed new Bloomberg Media headquarters, which will be topped by a residential tower. And also by the biggest capitalist of all: none other than Donald Trump, who lives in his own flagship commercial building on Fifth Avenue, and who recently told Vanity Fair that his greatest extravagance was "having to only ride an elevator to get to work."