Gowanus' Graffiti-Laden 'Bat Cave' Will Become Artist Workshop

GOWANUS, BROOKLYN — Gowanus' "Bat Cave," the former Brooklyn Rapid Transit powerhouse that became a home for squatters and graffiti artists, will soon begin its transformation into a large artists workshop and exhibition space.

The nonprofit Powerhouse Environmental Arts Foundation is in charge of the project, which will "offer production capabilities in multiple materials and will encourage investigation, experimentation and collaboration across media and disciplines," according to its website.

Foundation leaders originally planned only for studio and exhibition space but decided that artists need more places to actually create their work.

“The building has long been a destination for artists, and we wanted to keep it that way,” Katie Dixon, the foundation's executive director, told The New York Times.

(A Patch interview request was declined by a Powerhouse spokesman.)

The Swiss firm Herzog & de Meuron is designing the project, which will add an adjacent structure where a boiler house once stood.

Project renderings, which you can see above, show an industrial design that will largely preserve the building's rustic feel.

“The building always seemed very incomplete without the other third,” Ascan Mergenthaler, a senior partner at Herzog & de Meuron, told The Times. “Any addition should occupy the footprint of the original, so both become a whole again.”

And the graffiti won't be going anywhere, outside of pieces that have to be removed for structural repairs.

“It’s an incredible legacy for us to build on,” Dixon told The Times. “There are so many layers here, we don’t want to take any away. We simply want to add our own.”

Construction is scheduled to begin this year, and the facility is expected to open in 2020.

Read the full New York Times story here.

Image via Powerhouse Environmental Arts Foundation