This photo was taken at the landmarks preservation commission yesterday.
The landmarks preservation commission today called the new abstract design for 100 Franklin to be a creative response to the “tyranny of the context.” That is very strange language for a group that is supposed to be a steward of our historic assets. I beg to differ with the members of the current commission. Inside historic districts, the context is the law and the law was created in a democracy. What we really have is the tyranny of modernism that imposes an aesthetic of abstract geometry and disharmony, in this case contrary to the wishes of 1200 Tribecans who signed the petition for a more strictly contextual approach for this site.
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