The Most Depressing Red Hook Renderings. Ever.

These renderings, which went up on Curbed late yesterday afternoon, may be some of the most depressing we've ever seen. A Curbed reader commented that the project they represent is dead and, if so, that's a good thing. We've joke more than once about how Ikea represented the New Jerseyfication of the Red Hook waterfront, and this plan would seem to be the ultimate in Paramus-ification. Adding unspeakable insult to profound injury is the recreation of the Revere Dome as a shopping mall entrance in glass. If ever there were an architectural dagger through heart, recasting the Revere Dome as a mall entrance could be it. In fact, it would have earned the architect a place in a Circle of Hell if Dante had included one for crappy architecture.

It is our understanding that Enrique Norten and TEN Arquitectos is the project architect on the Revere site project for developer Joe Sitt and Thor Equities. Frankly, we have a difficult time seeing how Mr. Norten's work could possibly be worse this uninspired shopping-condo mashup that reminds us of something that belongs in Rockville, Maryland or Tysons Corner, Virginia. We are becoming so accustomed to the triumph of mediocrity and the lack of respect for community context in Brooklyn, however, that nothing would surprise us.

The Magnusson Architecture and Planning firm that produced this has actually done an acceptable, if somewhat pedestrian, design for the Atlantic Terrace development on Atlantic Avenue (the solar building that would be cut off from the sun by Bruce Ratner's towers) for the Fifth Avenue Committee. This nightmarish suburban-style monstrosity of almost unimaginable hideousness ambitious remake of Red Hook in the suburban shopping mall New Jersey vernacular would have clocked in at 1,661,200 square feet, including 907,000 square feet of retail and 250,000 square feet of housing.

We can only hope it is dead, although we're terrified to see what might be coming next. Of course, it's all an academic exercise until the uses for the property are decided, the zoning for the property is changed and densities are determined.