KOREAN PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, NEW YORK

KOREAN PRESBYTERIAN
CHURCH
 WAY TO INNER HALL

The original structure was built in 1932 for the Knickerbocker

Laundry Factory, a commercial firm that held the franchise for
cleaning Yankee uniforms. A local landmark, the precast
concrete Art Deco edifice later housed a perfume factory. The
church retains the laundry's street facade, though its curving
Deco surface, once white, has been painted black.
In the original building, a two-story industrial shed lay behind
the Deco facade. For the remodeling, the architects have added
a new structural framework that doubles the height of the shed.
They have sheared away three of the existing walls -- chop,
chop -- and replaced them with new ones: two finished with a
purple-gray stucco, the third made of translucent fiberglass
panels inset with clear glass windows.
DETAIL OF STRUCTURE INTERIOR CANOPY
 WOOD AND STEEL CONSTRUCTION

The plan is basically split into three areas: a large congregation

space fronted by the large wall of translucent panels and the
church's entry, the art-deco front on 37th Avenue now containing
classrooms and other small spaces , and a series of metal-clad
shells concealing the exit stairs required for the large, 2,500-seat
sanctuary. All is surrounded by acres of parking, some at the level
of the entry, some one-story below grade on the building's north
side.
CONGREGATION AREA

Architect:
Greg Lynn FORM, Garofalo Architects, Michael
McInturf Architects

Completion:
1999
 CONGREGATION AREA SHOWING FIRE EXIT

he sanctuary is the most impressive interior to be built in New York in many years. The room's
eiling (Nestor's inner hide) serves an acoustical function but is mainly an experiment in folded
lanes, a device long associated with Eisenman. The space is asymmetrical, with angled banks
f seating that violate the traditional arrangement around a central axis. The effect is not weird
r Caligariesque. Rather, the asymmetry makes the space more fluid, its vast size less
verwhelming. a glass wall slices through the sanctuary along its northern edge, allowing
atural light into the space and dissolving any sense of confinement.
INTERIOR REFLECTION OF EXTERIOR FAÇADE PIERCING OF LAYERS INTO THE STAIRWELL
SPACE

It's the building's north side and its series of angular, metal
scallops that gives the church its most striking feature, even
though this facade is the most removed from the entry, the road,
and the railway. It's also ironic that so much effort was
expended on a feature that's rarely used, as these pieces cover
the exit stairs from the sanctuary. But perhaps that's the point;
that the design needed some sort of POW or hidden surprise that
couldn't find its way into the art deco piece or the main
sanctuary
EAST

WEST

SOUTH
- the undulating skin is an addition constructed out of
wooden planks braced in a steel frame inviting the
visitors of the congregation
-the layering of the sections allow an openness to the
facade creating framed sight lines into the community
-the interior space
features a canopy
structure mimicking the
exterior which produces
an open air-like
environment leading the
visitors eye to the central
preaching area.

- the inner flaps are

back lit to generate
This massive church is located in a strange area between the suburban, automobile
landscape of Northern Boulevard and the planned community of Sunnyside Gardens.
The LIRR passes alongside the church and 37th Avenue, adding to the feeling that the
church doesn't really belong to any place, any neighborhood.
 The upper landing of the outdoor fire stair,
sheltered beneath the topmost canopy, is a
wonderful space, perhaps the best in the
building, with views of the Manhattan
skyline and the sanctuary inside. A perfect
place for a garden of contemplation. Fire
codes permitting, the entire staircase, and
the spaces beneath it, would benefit from
landscaping. Software-driven design
should maximize what chat rooms cannot
provide: habitable public space for
integrated bodies, minds and souls;
Shortcomings in blob architecture might
physical proximity; tactility; the here as
be called glitches, blips or crashes. The
well as the now.
Presbyterian Church has a few. Stairs. In
the balcony aisle, and an exterior stair
near the parking lot, the treads are too
long. You have to hop-skip, leading first
left foot, then right. This rhythm is boring
and distracts from the irregular geometries
of the space. Such discomforts can be
found in many conventional buildings, but
it's screwy when formalist architecture
does not work with the geometry of
human form.