Green-Wood Cemetery Chapel Extension Wins Brooklyn Building Award

Congratulations to Green-Wood Cemetery, one of the places honored this year in the 2015 Brooklyn Building Awards, which are given out annually by the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce to “recently completed construction and renovation projects that improve the borough’s diverse neighborhoods and economy.”

Green-Wood won the Arts & Culture award for its chapel extension, whose architect was PBDW Architects, and whose builder was Builder Structure Tone. Completed in 2014, the project aimed to strike a balance between the grand nearby entry gate, built in 1860 by Richard Upjohn, and the adjacent 1950s crematorium, adding a new façade to create a unified presence.

“Its low massing, strong horizontals, and shifting planes engage the surrounding Arcadian landscape, while the new design respects the original building’s modernist vocabulary of limestone and white marble trim,” the architect explains on its website. “The materials and details of the new façade relate the expanded structure to adjacent contemporary structures, while the brown granite rainscreen connects it to the Belleville brownstone of Upjohn’s exuberant entrance.”

Other nearby honorees include the BRIC Arts Media Center and Steiner Studios in Fort Greene and the renovated Kings Theatre in Flatbush, which will host the awards ceremony on July 21.

“The borough of Brooklyn is truly an innovation hub, where builders and designers can put their craft to use and enhance the city that surrounds them,” said Chamber President/CEO Carlo Scissura. “These projects represent the creative influence and inventive culture that inhabit our borough. I would like to congratulate all the winners for their state-of-the-art projects that make this urban setting a place the world needs to see.”