Brick Is Back

For roughly 25 years, New York City's architectural landscape was dominated by glass-skinned buildings, a trend significantly influenced by architects like Richard Meier. His three glass-clad apartment buildings along West Street popularized the concept of transparent homes, showcasing residents' lives to the outside world, a departure from mid-century Los Angeles architects like Richard Neutra who focused on displaying the outside world to their clients. This sparked a 'mania' for glass, with both office and residential towers adopting crystalline facades that prioritized a sleek, ageless appearance and maximized daylight. James von Klemperer, president of Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF), noted that the preference for glass communicated a 'hypertechnical approach to architecture' and the desire for abundant daylight. However, this widespread adoption of glass is now seeing a significant shift. Traditional materials such as brick, stone, and terra-cotta, which offer solidity and rich earth tones, are making a noticeable return to New York's architectural designs. An example of this is Leroy Street Studio's brick-and-terra-cotta building at 145 Perry Street, located near Meier's glass towers. This massive single-family home, designed to resemble a pair of small apartment buildings, utilizes both red and cream-colored brick, reflecting the historic residential and industrial architecture of the West Village. Its perforated screen of staggered bricks and recessed windows create an anti-exhibitionistic facade, offering only subtle glimpses of its interior, a direct contrast to the transparency trend. While New York always retained historic brick and stone structures, including the intricate 19th-century Romanesque buildings like the Puck Building and the De Vinne Press Building, new masonry facades were often limited to historic districts where the Landmarks Preservation Commission mandated designs that harmonized with existing architecture. Affordable housing and budget-conscious condos sometimes incorporated prefabricated panels with brick veneer. Robert A.M. Stern's firm consistently advocated for stone-clad walls and framed windows, believing they conveyed a distinct 'New Yorkiness' and quality in deluxe residential towers, exemplified by their limestone high-rise at 200 East 83rd Street, which echoes Art Deco designs. These earlier design choices, once considered exceptions, are now seen as prescient. Architect Morris Adjmi, known for blending 19th-century warehouse aesthetics with contemporary designs, observed the cyclical nature of architectural trends. His firm's Grand Mulberry building at 185 Grand Street features handmade, hand-laid bricks with unique rounded bumps that create a 'ghost pattern' of windows, evoking the passage of time and the layered history of the city. The building's rounded corner and nubbled bricks add a sense of gratuitous grandeur, reminiscent of aspirational flourishes on older, modest commercial structures. Even KPF, a major proponent of glass supertalls, has embraced the renewed interest in tactile solidity. Von Klemperer acknowledges a growing appreciation for 'craft and humanistic architecture.' KPF's 11-story apartment building at 64 University Place showcases a series of shallow arches with stepped setbacks and recessed windows. These design elements create a buffer of shadows and give the facade a three-dimensional quality, emphasizing the building as a durable, tangible object rather than a transparent plane. The use of hand-made and individually laid bricks, a result of a temporary economic advantage, highlights the renewed appreciation for skilled craftsmanship, evident in the precise grout work and varied flecks that animate the facade. Terra-cotta, historically used for ornate details in buildings like the Bayard–Condict Building and the Woolworth Tower, is also experiencing a revival. Companies like Boston Valley Terra Cotta utilize modern technology to reproduce historic elements and provide extruded panels for new constructions. This has allowed SOM to use green terra-cotta for Disney's headquarters and KPF to create a neo-Art Deco mixed-use tower at 520 Fifth Avenue, featuring stacked arches, rhythmic setbacks, and rippling panels, all contributing to a rich 'surface character.' The re-embrace of these traditional materials signifies a return to architectural principles that value shadows, texture, depth, color, and organic imperfection, qualities that are fundamental to human experience and have been essential to building since ancient times. #Architecture #Brick #TerraCotta #BuildingMaterials #NewYorkCity #FacadeDesign #UrbanDevelopment #ArchitecturalTrends #KohnPedersenFox #Architecture #Brick #TerraCotta #BuildingMaterials #NewYorkCity #FacadeDesign #UrbanDevelopment #ArchitecturalTrends #KohnPedersenFox

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