Weeksville Heritage Center in Crown Heights Nic Lehoux

It's no secret that new buildings are springing up quickly in Brooklyn these days. On Thursday night, the Municipal Art Society of New York honored the architectural firms behind nine new buildings completed last year, seven of which are in Brooklyn.

No projects in Manhattan (or Staten Island) earned recognition, but despite that fact, MAS held the shindig on a terrace overlooking Columbus Circle and Central Park.

The top honor—Best New Building—went to the Weeksville Heritage Center in Crown Heights, on Buffalo Avenue between Bergen Street and St. Marks Avenue. Weeksville existed as its own village and one of the nation's first free black communities in the 19th century before gradually fading into Crown Heights.

Caples Jefferson Architects built it to be a multidimensional museum and performing-arts space.

"We wanted to create a center of gravity where you would feel this was special but you come across this as a discovery," Sara Caples said.

The center purposely doesn't rise above its neighboring buildings.

"It's a very low-scale building and you don't really perceive it until you get to it, and then you feel a slight dissonance," added Everardo Jefferson. "It coexists with the existing fabric but it is different."...Continue Reading

> via WSJ