Fling Open the Shutters …
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.
Shutters adorn many of the city’s older townhouses and industrial buildings. They are meant to provide protection against the elements, and are also used for privacy. When they are louvered, they can provide adjustable daylighting.
Of late, shutters have been making a comeback. There is Shigeru Ban’s Metal Shutter Houses, a residential condominium under construction at 524 W. 19th St. in Chelsea. Its “shutters” open vertically, like many garage doors.
Earlier this month, the Landmarks Preservation Commission held hearings on two new proposals for buildings that include shutters. They need approval from Landmarks because they are in historic districts.
At 41 Bond St., architect Steven Harris designed for developer Adam Gordon an eight-story residential condominium building with a limestone façade, a thin glass canopy, window boxes, and shutters on the front façade. After hearing feedback from Landmarks earlier this month, Mr. Harris returned Tuesday and presented a revised design for the building that was 4 feet shorter and had rougher rustication on the limestone on the ground floor. Landmarks approved the revised plan.
Mr. Harris has designed the rear of 41 Bond St. without shutters, but with a very modern design, good enough to compete with the fronts of several new and non-shuttered residential buildings on the same cobblestone block at 25, 40, and 48 Bond St.
Earlier this month, Aby Rosen’s development team presented to Landmarks a revised design by architect Sir Norman Foster for an addition to the low-rise former Parke-Bernet building at 980 Madison Ave., across from the Hotel Carlyle. Landmarks had sent back an earlier Foster design that featured a curved, reflective-glass-clad 22-story tower addition at the north end of the building, calling it “inappropriate.” The new design is dramatically shorter, and it now conforms to existing zoning regulations.
What is startling about the new Foster design is that the façade of the addition is composed of thin bronze louvers that not only open like shutters, but can be folded, like an accordion, to provide broader openings.
Some preservationists felt that the addition “overwhelms” and contrasts with the limestone base of the existing building. Others at the hearing commented that the potential, and probable, random openness of the shutters would be somewhat chaotic for the elegant precinct.
A statement from the Historic Districts Council suggested that the louvers “should fold inward” rather than “tilt out a number of feet from the façade.”
In 1978, Mr. Foster proposed, unsuccessfully, a mixed-use tower clad in black metal panels with various interchangeable, geometric cutouts for windows that would have been an expansion for the Whitney Museum of American Art — a design that deserves to be built.
In its horizontal bronze-ness, the new Foster design is reminiscent of the recent design by Jones Studio Inc. for the South Mountain Community College Performing Arts Center in Phoenix. Mr. Foster’s building, however, permits the residents of the 23 apartments in the addition to “flex” their muscles with the shutters that apparently can be flung open not just perpendicular to the building wall, but also at angles. “I’m in a 32-degree-angle state of mind today.”
Mr. Horsley is the editor of CityRealty.com.