The long-term impact of recessions is often most evident on projects altered by the economic realities. The most obvious example in the New York region this year was Forest City Ratner’s decision not to have Gehry Partners of Los Angeles as master architect of its massive $4.9 billion Atlantic Yards complex. In a statement about removing Gehry specifically from the complex’s signature sports arena, Bruce Ratner, CEO of the development firm, stated: “The current economic climate is not right for this design, and with Frank’s understanding, the arena is undergoing a redesign that will make it more limited in scope.” Forest City announced it was tapping Ellerbe Becket to finish the arena.
The need to scratch bigger ideas plays out in smaller scale as well, such as the newly redesigned plans for the Parrish Art Museum in Southampton, N.Y., by Switzerland-based Herzog & de Meuron. Nicolai Ouroussoff of the New York Times recounted in an August column how the firm originally presented plans for an $80 million structure but this year unveiled a replacement that fits a budget only a third as large. “Yet the design is also a major step down in architectural ambition,” he wrote. “And it suggests the possibility of a worrying new development in our time of financial insecurity. It is a creeping conservatism – and aversion to risk – that leaves little room for creative invention.”