110 Livingston News & Blog

Across Boerum Place from 110 Livingston sits the distinctive MTA building, which houses the agency’s IT department and other offices, and which manages to look like both the prow of a ship and a turret at the same time. The building was designed by the architect Helmut Jahn. His other work includes the CitySpire building in Manhattan, whose dome is inspired by One Hanson Place, One Liberty Place, Philadelphia’s most distinctive tower, and the Sony Center in Berlin. “An Architectural Guidebook to Brooklyn” calls Jahn’s work “jazzy” and “postmodernist.”

According to the guidebook, the MTA building was inspired by old-school Brooklyn architecture, and two traditions in particular: “polychromatic masonry” (the stripes on the building), and rounded towers, which were favored by late 19th-Century architects like Montrose Morris. See more of Jahn’s recent work at the link below.

• Images of Helmut Jahn’s work (Murphyjahn.com)
• The New Modernism of Helmut Jahn (Architecture Week)

Photo by The_WB