Mr. Gehry first tried to break into the city’s architectural scenein the early 1980s, when he was hired to design a town house for theUpper East Side doyenne Christophe de Menil. The project ended in tearsfor Mr. Gehry when she fired him over a glass of Champagne. Nearly 20 years later, his proposal for a mega-Guggenheim Museum on the East River was shelved for lack of funds. His plan for the colossal Atlantic Yardsdevelopment in Brooklyn remains a pet target of grass-roots activists.And his first major New York building, a headquarters for the media andInternet conglomerate IAC on the West Side Highway, was recentlydisfigured by an enormous logo.So Mr. Gehry’s 76-story BeekmanTower, which is under construction just south of City Hall and whoselatest design was released on Friday, should be considered longoverdue. Rising just south of the entry ramps to the BrooklynBridge, it will join an imposing cluster of landmarks around City Hall,including Cass Gilbert’s 1913 neo-Gothic Woolworth Building and McKim,Mead & White’s 1914 Municipal Building, early examples of thecity’s deep romance with the sky. Draped over a classical shell, thetower’s crinkled steel skin is proof that the skyscraper has yet toexhaust itself as an urban art form. Just as important, thedesign suggests that the city is slowly if hesitantly recovering fromthe trauma of 9/11. Only a few years ago, as plans were readied for abunkerlike Freedom Tower downtown, it seemed as if the Manhattanskyline would be marred by jingoism and fear. Mr. Gehry’s tower, by contrast, harks back to the euphoric aspirations of an earlier age without succumbing to nostalgia. Like Jean Nouvel’srecently unveiled design for a West 53rd Street tower, which suggestsshards of glass tumbling from the sky, it signals that the city isfinally emerging from a long period of creative exhaustion.Thedesign has evolved through an unusual public-private partnership. In anagreement with New York education officials, the tower’s developer,Forest City Ratner, agreed to incorporate a public elementary schoolinto the project. Forest City was responsible for the construction ofthe school; the Department of Education then bought the building fromthe developer. {Forest City was also a development partner in the newMidtown headquarters of The New York Times Company.}The BeekmanTower is thus a curious fusion of public and private zones. Clad insimple red brick, the school will occupy the first five floors of thebuilding. Atop this base will be the elaborate stainless-steel form ofthe residential tower, which will have its own entrance along a coveredporte-cochere between Beekman and Spruce Streets. Only a fewblocks from ground zero and Wall Street, the shimmering tower’shypnotic pull will significantly reconfigure the downtown skyline. Aclassical T-shaped plan and sharp corners give the building anunexpected heft. As the structure rises, its forms will step backslightly, subtly breaking down the scale and bringing to mind a seriesof stacked toy blocks. The pattern shifts at each break, setting thecomposition slightly off balance and injecting an appealing sense ofvulnerability.Yet what makes the tower so intoxicating is theexterior skin. Before dreaming up the design, Mr. Gehry checked into aroom at the Four Seasons Hotel and spent days gazing out at theskyline. He experimented with dozens of configurations, from stoic tovoluptuous, before opting for facades etched with a series of soft,irregular folds. This pattern strikes a perfect note. The foldsevoke rivulets of water, crinkled sheets of aluminum foil, melting ice;their effect will be heightened by light and shadow dancing across thesurfaces over the course of a day.Some of that emotion carriesover to the interiors. The exterior folds are not merely decorativeflourishes; they create a series of bays inside each of the apartments.The walls inside e
www.nytimes.com/2008/05/31/arts/design/31beek.html?ref=design