A Striking Newcomer At 25 Bond St.
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

In the architecture trade, a firm can moil in anonymity for years, even decades, and then, as though from one day to the next, they seem to be absolutely everywhere. And so, it would appear, the moment has arrived for BKSK Architects, a New York firm that has been in business since 1984.
A few weeks back, visiting 40 Bond St., I noticed a far more interesting, though far less talkedabout, apartment building across the way at 25 Bond St. On inquiring as to the architectural firm that designed it, I first heard the name BKSK Architects. A week later, I went to see the new visitors center at the Queens Botanical Garden, and once again was told that it was by BKSK Architects. Then, this past week, I was walking down 72nd Street, between Columbus and Amsterdam Avenue, when I saw the nearly completed Harsen House, on the south side of the street. It too was by BKSK Architects.
25 Bond St. is all but complete and at least one family has already moved in. It is part of a singular transformation that has come over this tiny stretch of Manhattan, from Lafayette to the Bowery. Nearly 20 years ago, Bond Street was an ignoble sidestreet with a few loft spaces that preserved their manufacturing function.
How things have changed. Now no fewer than three new apartment buildings are approaching completion. The best of the three projects, however, is surely BKSK’s work at 25 Bond St., 8 stories tall and containing nine units. Indeed, it can boast one of the boldest facades in the five boroughs: a boldly textured screen of Jerusalem limestone whose syncopated windows bounce along the façade in an asymmetrical series of prominences and recessions. According to the firm, this building represents “a modern interpretation of the elegant stone and cast iron buildings of Bond street. That, of course, is what they all say, all those architectural firms that work in and around the cast-iron district. In fact, the same claims were made across the street at 40 Bond, though it seemed no truer there than here or anywhere else. Only with the utmost goodwill can the effect of either façade be said to resemble that of a cast-iron building.
At 25 Bond, in any case, the horizontal thrust of the project is given strong vertical support through and counterweight by four bays that rise up six stories to the point where the setback begins. The setback consists of a dark curtain wall, in contrast to the masonry that defines the lower part of the building. At its summit is the mechanical core and at the sides, two powerful vertical thrusts draw the lower part of the building up into and beyond the setback. The best part of the Bond Street facade is at ground level. There is a powerful authority to the trabeated bays there. Through one of these you are ushered into the lobby under an assertive, cantilevered metal canopy that possesses a crisp, modernist integrity. My only complaint with this entrance is the use of stone facing in the lobby. The apparently dry, mortarless joining of stone facing leaves deep groves between the segments that, to this critic, look merely incomplete. Richard Meier has pioneered this use of stone at the Getty and at the Ara Pacis Museum in Rome. It must appeal to someone, but it is hard to fathom its allure.
Less visible than the Bond Street facade is the back of the building, partially visible from Shinbone Alley. This part of the structure is mostly curtain wall, of the sort that characterizes only the setback on Bond Street. But its playful use of masonry and a sequence of balconies seems quite original, confirming that 25 Bond Street, back or front, is one of the more distinguished new buildings in Manhattan.