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The Saratoga Avenue Community Center in Brooklyn Paul Warchol Oasis in Limestone and Brick A community center grows in Brooklyn.

mid the aging bodegas, dis- comes across as a hip adobe pueblo: its exists as something in its own right.” count shops, and anonymous myriad elevations are simultaneously an- The structure was a departure for Ra- towers of Bedford-Stuyvesant gular and irregular, arresting yet unobtru- nalli, dean of the Spitzer School of Ar- A in Brooklyn, hard by the Sara- sive. “It’s a function of wanting to make chitecture at City College of the City toga Village public-housing project, one something that fits as comfortably as pos- University of New York. It was his first building stands out. On first impression, sible with the community,” says its archi- fully freestanding work built from scratch, the Saratoga Avenue Community Center tect, George Ranalli, M.Arch. ’74, “but also erected in this case on an inauspicious

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30 September - October 2011 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 House_Glasses.indd 1 8/12/11 3:09 PM An interior view montage of the community center, showing its signer of luxury homes; pleted in 2009, straddles the middle unusual window one of his more notable ground between the tall drab heights of placement assignments was carv- the Saratoga housing project itself and an ing out six unique resi- old Metropolitan Transportation Author- dential units within the ity substation. It has become a celebrated Callender School, a Na- structure. In the New Yorker, Paul Gold- tional Historic Landmark berger welcomed the center as “excep- in Newport, Rhode Is- tionally handsome and dignified” and one land (www.georgeranalli. of the “Ten Most Positive Architectural com). But by 1999, when Events of 2009.” In the Wall Street Journal, the Saratoga commission Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic came through from the Ada Louise Huxtable found it admirably New York Housing Au- postmodern, yet devoid of “the bad jokes thority, he had come to fo- or superficial historical allusions of post- cus on more civic-minded modernism’s defiant denial of modern- endeavors. ism’s rejection of the past.” “It was always my goal At the building’s heart is its spacious, to do public and institu- 23-foot-high main assembly room, deco-

Paul Warchol tional commissions,” he rated on a late June afternoon with chil- site in a “rough and tumble, blue-collar” reflects. “Public buildings were impor- dren’s watercolor paintings. No mere neighborhood still overcoming a long- tant to me growing up—libraries and mu- gathering space, it is shot through with standing reputation for urban blight. (“It seums, all these buildings that the city of dramatic angles and unexpected details. was a barren wasteland,” he recalls.) For New York always gave to its citizens. All Unpredictable patterns of darker walnut more than two decades, he had been a of them were places of public assembly, inlays punctuate the pale oak floor; tooth- self-described modernist concerned with where people come together.” like panels of plycem cement break up any “balancing innovation and stability” in his The 5,500-square-foot community cen- monotony in the walls. Most intriguing, works. He had established himself as a de- ter, built for only $2.3 million and com- perhaps, are the windows. All rectangu-

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Harvard Magazine 31 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 montage

The center from above, in its livas Harvard Division of Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood O lar yet utterly dissimilar, they are playfully Julian juxtaposed from side to side like two-di- Continuing Education mensional building blocks. When sunlight plays through, the overall effect is inviting congratulates Harvard University on 375 years. and accommodating—designed, as the ar- chitect puts it, “to resonate with people on the feeling level first.” HARVARD UNIVERSITY The son of Italian immigrants from the Visit harvardmag.com/ EXTENSION SCHOOL Bronx, Ranalli appre­ extras for more images ciates the power of of the Saratoga Avenue Community Center. • More than 600 courses on campus and online for community input. students in the Boston area and around the world During Saratoga’s lengthy planning pro- • Undergraduate and graduate degrees and cess, neighborhood residents reviewed professional certificates the materials that would ultimately be used in its construction: limestone, iron- • World-class faculty from Harvard University and flecked orangey “roman” bricks (thinner the Greater Boston community and longer than usual), glass-fiber rein- www.extension.harvard.edu forced concrete (commonly known as GFRC casting stone), mahogany for the front doors and window frames. “It was HARVARD SUMMER SCHOOL an unusual palette for the Housing Au- thority,” Ranalli acknowledges. “They’re • More than 300 courses including the sciences, used to aluminum and stainless steel.” humanities, economics, and foreign languages But the locals were delighted. “They said, • 20 study abroad programs directed by Harvard faculty ‘We’re actually going to get a building • College-level high school program, including seminars, that’s made of this?’” college preparation, and extracurricular activities In its two years, Saratoga has been a local hit. It routinely offers nursery, day- www.summer.harvard.edu care, after-school, and senior-citizens programs, as well as an urban summer Harvard Institute for Learning in Retirement camp. But residents also use the main hall for wedding receptions, graduation • A community of retired and semi-retired academics fêtes, and other purely celebratory get-to- and professionals engaged in lifelong learning gethers. “The response has been tremen- www.hilr.harvard.edu dous,” Ranalli says. “They fight to have their parties here. At a party six or eight Professional Development months after the opening, people were saying, ‘We just can’t believe that we have • Intensive one- and two-day seminars on campus at Harvard this.’ This is what you make buildings www.dce.harvard.edu/professional for. It’s the framework in which people live their lives.” vthomas vinciguerra

32 September - October 2011 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746