exterior – New York at its Best

The 20th and 21st-centuries have flipped the definition of art over, and over, and over again. With changing subjects, purposes, materials, and sizes, contemporary art has pushed to the limits the conditions needed to house and display it. So for architects, creating the right spaces to exhibit art can be challenging.

Over the past 100 years, something else has changed, too. As art transforms, so do neighborhoods, and one-by-one a similar pattern in NYC communities has presented itself. We’ll talk more about that in a little bit.

In their quest to find meaningful places to present their creations to the public, instead of looking to the future, avant-garde artists have relied on the past. This was the mantra of the alternative spaces movement. Alanna Heiss, a major proponent of this movement, founded the Institute for Art and Urban Resources Inc. in the 1970s. The aim of this organization was to “[organize] exhibitions in underutilized and abandoned spaces across New York City.” Abandoned warehouses and factories were two of the most beneficial building types for the display of new art, with their wide and tall open spaces suitable for all kinds of provocative and site-specific installations.

An abandoned public school building turned out to be the final jump for Heiss and the artists she advocated for. In 1976, the Institute rebranded as the P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, named in honor of the First Ward School that the building was originally made for. The organization merged with MoMA in 1999 to become MoMA PS1.

MoMA PS1 is interesting architecturally in a variety of ways. First and foremost, of course, is the building itself. The building is part of the Romanesque Revival lineage that was popularized in the mid-19th century, especially by Henry Hobson Richardson. Romanesque buildings were characterized by their use of heavy materials and strictly semi-circular arches (a continuation of the form used by the Romans). The school has a handsome and massive stone base, and expresses its horizontality, rather than its verticality, through the use of successive, low-arched windows. The terra cotta colored brick and the restrained (this isn’t a Gothic Revival building) yet rich ornamental detailing (in terra cotta) is inviting. What better place to display underground, stick-it-to-the-establishment art than a building staunch in its forgotten and, nowadays, often frowned upon design elements?

The museum’s new entrance building, completed in 2011 by Andrew Berman Architect, is a brutalist success story. The cast concrete wall creates a strong presence on Jackson Avenue but is also a beautiful juxtaposition to the gaudy, green-glass Citi Tower that its vantage point leads you towards. The entrance atrium is reminiscent of Tadao Ando with its interplay of light through holes in the concrete construction, and then leads to what one might call a grand approach to the museum through its entrance courtyard.

The inside is beneficial for display, too. Classrooms have tall, open ceilings and can either be used individually for an artist or linked together to create larger exhibition spaces. Beyond that, the building has a feel unlike any other museum I’ve been to. When I’m climbing the cramped, low ceiling staircases with their red hand-rails, when I look through windowed doors lining long hallways, and when I hear the creaking of old, wooden floorboard, I’m brought back to my days as an elementary school student (shoutout to PS64). At MoMA PS1, there’s a sense of provocative art, youthful nostalgia, and proud NYC building history all mixed together, and it makes viewing the art all the more exciting.

The museum includes other architectural delights like traces of a building perpetually unfinished (holes in the wall that show utilities operations, bare brick ceilings, and plans drawn on walls), a walkthrough of the old basement and its outdated machinery, and art and building as one in pieces such as the Pipilotti Rist video installation (a hole in the floor), the in-motion Bruce Nauman installation which scratches on the floor, graphic arts in all the staircases, and more. MoMA PS1 also co-runs the Young Architects Program, which transforms the main courtyard each year into a sort-of architectural dreamworld. The 2018 winner Dream the Combine presented Hide & Seek, which featured huge, movable mirrors.

For all of its success as a contemporary art center, MoMA PS1 also hints at a darker lesson to be learned. If you’re wondering who would have thought that a school, in Long Island City, could ever be a museum, people paying attention in the ’70s could tell you that it wasn’t that big of a surprise, if you were paying attention. With the downfall of manufacturing in NYC, foresighted developers could tell which neighborhoods were next in line to be “revitalized.” LIC was the poster child for development in the 1970s. A mix of abandoned industrial buildings and low-income residents, buying property from locals was cheap, and the neighborhood’s close proximity to Manhattan meant that it would become desirable with a facelift. To get that process started, you let the artists take their place. When the avant-garde becomes more popular, more attention and money is attracted to the epicenter, and the neighborhood begins to change. During that change, in the words of one developer, “…in any development there are certain innocent people who get hurt.”

I don’t claim to be an expert in the development of LIC, nor do I think that MoMA PS1 has been a negative thing for the neighborhood or NYC, but there are questions to be thought about here. A lot of LIC natives were likely displaced in the transformation of the community from an industrial center to an artistic once, a similar development that SoHo underwent earlier and that many other neighborhoods are undergoing now. How do we ‘improve’ a neighborhood without pushing out low-income residents? What type of effects does real-estate development have on the urban and social fabric of city neighborhoods? MoMA PS1 fit nicely into the aesthetic of LIC, but what kinds of obligations, if any, does the museum have to long-term LIC residents 30-years after its inception?

Sources:

Roberta Smith’s Art Review of the museum after its renovation in the 1990s: “More Spacious and Gracious, Yet Still Funky at Heart.”
For more about the Romanesque Revival style, see this field guide.
A short synopsis of the building’s history and style can be found here.
For more about Alanna Heiss and the history of the organization, see MoMA PS1’s website.
For a look at the entrance building, see the architect’s website.
For an insightful and thought provoking reading about the future of Long Island City as “The Next Hot Neighborhood” near the end of the century and PS1’s role in this process, see pages 20-25 of New York Magazine’s August 11th, 1980 issue.

As a freshman at NYU, I steered clear of Bobst Library as much as possible. Its red sandstone facade was not inviting, in fact I thought it was rather ugly, and though the atrium was an exciting area, the study spaces on the bottom two floors (the only places I was brave enough to explore my first year) felt cold and lonely. Bobst was claustrophobic and dark. It repulsed me.

Like many NYU students the place grew on me. I came to appreciate it more when my friend introduced me to the south-side study area on the 5th floor, and after I learned more about the building in my architecture classes.

The first idea that helped me really appreciate Bobst’s architectural significance was Philip Johnson’s and Richard Foster’s post-modern twist on a historical detail- columns. When you look at Bobst, you’ll notice that columns are seemingly absent, a perfectly normal characteristic of modern buildings. But if you look closer, you’ll realize that there are columns at play. You, the viewer, just need to fill them in. The niches that line the library’s facade aren’t just random voids, they are empty spaces that resemble the silhouettes of classical columns. A sort-of short base exists on the ground floor. They are then colossal from the 2nd floor up, ending in a capital-like void at the top. Stare at them for a moment and imagine the columns that fit into these spaces. Post-modern architects wanted people to actively engage with their constructions on a different level than just functional use. Boring buildings didn’t fit their bill.

The fact that the facade’s material, Longmeadow Redstone quarried in East Longmeadow, Massachusetts, is meant to blend with the redbrick low-rise buildings that surrounded Washington Square Park is, I think, a commendable nod to the importance of responding to locality. But that doesn’t mean that the material choice is perfectly suitable. While on the one hand the earthy tone provides a nice backdrop for Schwartz Plaza, on the other hand, Bobst (and its neighbor Tisch Hall) stick out like sore-thumbs on the south side of the park where red-brick isn’t as prevalent. I’m also not sold on the alternating light and dark portions of the sandstone, I can’t decide if it adds character or just looks blotchy.

I’m inclined to agree with Paul Goldberger that Bobst’s interior space is more important than it’s outside and “makes for one of New York’s most spectacular architectural experiences.” The central atrium is dazzling. I’ve only known the space from after the “digitally inspired veil” was put in place to keep more students from jumping from the buildings balconies (higher education has a serious student suicide problem that needs to be addressed). Despite the sorrow reason for the barrier’s introduction, it has transformed the space in a net positive way. Though the unobstructed view to the Venetian San Giorgio Maggiore Church-inspired floor below is now gone, the way that the ‘Pixel Matrix’ dematerializes from south to north in the building creates for interesting viewpoints that gradually morph as you move through the building.

Goldberger characterized the floor as splendid and witty but said that it was detached from the other aspects of the room and therefore added to a sense of fussiness. I see his point, but on a certain level, the disparate elements do blend. The ‘Pixel Matrix,’ from below, almost looks fluid; it flows from top to bottom, before condensing into a black and white pool at the ground; an exuberance of pop-art pleasure.

Bobst Library has been troubled in other ways, too: community organizers like Jane Jacobs and Ruth Wittenberg fought against its construction on the basis that its height and bulk would cast shadows on Washington Square Park, and both its namesake and its main architect were known anti-semites. Despite its fraught history, Bobst’ interior is grand in a way that can make one feel monumental. For that at least, it fits nicely into the lineage of New York’s best places.

Architecture begins to matter when it brings delight and sadness and perplexity and awe along with a roof over our heads. – Paul Goldberger

Tag: exterior

A New Life for Public School 1… and Long Island City, Too

Bobst Library: A Mixture of Pleasure and Dread