Archicritics can't stop talking about the Barclays Center, with critiques ranging from "tawdry and uninspired" to "an architectural chest bump" to "an alien presence." Now, New York's most poet critic has weighed in on the building for his latest Bloomberg review, which means only one thing: ladies and gentlemen, it's Rhyme Time with James Russell:
A huge frog has landed in Brooklyn.
The exceedingly strange $1 billion Barclays Center.
Designed by SHoP Architects,
dark bands of pre-rusted steel
undulate sensuously and senselessly around the building.
Armor-plate bands
swirl into a stretched and twisted donut
30 feet above the wedge-shaped entry plaza.
Exterior curviness
suggests you'll be swept theatrically to your seat.
The reality,
an awkwardly proportioned, wedge-shaped, dark-gray lobby.
The seating and aisles looked tight to me.
Together with steeply raked tiers,
spectators are commendably close to the action.
No Garden disaster,
just an extraordinarily expensive lost opportunity.
· Jay Z Concerts to Open Rusty $1 Billion Barclays Center [Bloomberg]
· Rhyme Time With James Russell archives [Curbed]
· All Barclays Center coverage [Curbed]
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