Tag: public

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

Daniel J BorreroLeave a comment

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Institute rebranded as the P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, named in honor of the First Ward School that the building was originally made for.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:

  1. Roberta Smith’s Art Review of the museum after its renovation in the 1990s: “More Spacious and Gracious, Yet Still Funky at Heart.”
  2. For more about the Romanesque Revival style, see this field guide.
  3. A short synopsis of the building’s history and style can be found here.
  4. For more about Alanna Heiss and the history of the organization, see MoMA PS1’s website.
  5. For a look at the entrance building, see the architect’s website.
  6. 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.

The Met: Architecture for What?

Daniel J BorreroLeave a comment

Ever since 1959, when Frank Lloyd Wright’s attention grabbing design for The Guggenheim opened its doors, architects, directors, critics, and historians have been searching for the right way to build a museum. The main question to answer, it seems, is: What is the purpose of a museum? There are, theoretically, innumerable answers to that question. I think that most, however, fall under a few big umbrellas:

  1. The museum is a repository for art and artifacts.
  2. The museum is a work of art in-and-of itself, and it stands as reflection of the spirit of a city and its people.
  3. The museum is a consolidation of breathtaking design on its own merit, and for the display and understanding of arts and artifacts. It is a satisfying synthesis.
  4. The museum is a place of wonder where one can learn from and meet works of art, but also other people. The museum is a stage in which people grow from both viewing and socializing.

The first three are ideas I’ve gathered from reading other literature. Under the first view, museums are merely backdrops for the works of art they display. Architects should, to quote James Johnson Sweeney, director of the Guggenheim from 1952-1960, “underdesign.”

Under the second view, architects take a museum commission as a way to flex their design muscles. The buildings are to become statements of architectural prowess as the architects attempt to make innovative structures suitable for importance places. This can come at the cost of acceptable exhibition spaces.

The third is a mixture of the first two, arguably what museum design has trended towards. A museum should attest to the greatness of a city and its citizens and the might of a commendable architect, but it should also provide for lively spaces that present art well. This is especially important concerning contemporary art, which may require spaces beyond the typical exhibition room for proper display.

For Huxtable, The Guggenheim Bilbao represented the culmination of this view; it is “art and architecture as one.” It and other contemporary museums have pushed the boundaries of architectural design while providing unique environments for the display of new art.

But where does this leave museums of the past? What of places like The Metropolitan Museum of Art that were built before this museum design-defining frenzy?

I don’t think that anyone would argue that The Met doesn’t serve its purpose as a repository. With over 2,000,000 square feet of floor space, it can display not just some but a considerable amount of art from innumerable disparate places and times.

Some will argue that The Met is not an architectural masterpiece. Some shortcomings? It can seem a bit long at first, and does a glass facade really go with an Egyptian Temple? Yet it is precisely these images that define The Met as a New York City icon. New Yorkers can handle big, Beaux-Arts dreams (the 5th Avenue facade) and bold, modern redesigns (the Sackler Wing) mashed into one. Not to mention the fact that the museum pays homage to its lengthy architectural history by using past facades as inside walls. Specifically, polychrome Gothic Revival masonry from the museum’s first building on the 5th Ave. site can be seen in all its splendor by looking over your shoulder when you enter the Robert Lehman Collection.

Already, we’ve check marked view three; The Met is an architectural delectation with a brilliant display of art. But just to add some might to my argument, let’s look at the experience a little bit more. On the outside, look up for four caryatids that represent the four branches of art (painting, sculpture, architecture, and music) while you stroll through a carefully articulated plaza. You walk down a row of trees as you approach from the north or south, and the lights from below add a sense of importance to your entry. As you pass the fountains and climb the grand staircase, it’s as if you are rising to the occasion of sophisticated yet public art as colossal columns proclaim your presence.

There’s something special about the stairs of The Met. Your status in society, as Blair Waldorf from the Gossip Girl series might tell you, rises as you ascend. The Met is Blair Waldorf architectonified: it is a New York heiress, grand despite her shortcomings, the “Queen Bee” and jewel of 5th Avenue, and secure in her position as keeper of knowledge and style. You cannot help but already feel exhilarated as you reach the entrance.

Inside this spirit continues. Beaux-Arts columns, arches, and vaults greet you at first, tall and grandiose as ever. As you move through the building, the designs of different wings reflect the changing moods that art from different societies affects.

It’s these experiences that lend The Met its success under view four. The architecture is designed to enhance the meeting of art and person. You are enveloped in different scenes that make paintings, statues, artifacts, and so on all the more powerful. Just as important though, the paths that you take through the plazas, rooms, corridors, and staircases you peruse allow you, if you take advantage of it, to interact with others at every point. From the approach to the museum (the plaza is always filled with independent artists and the stairs inside and out are quite literally meeting places), to the framed views through rooms, and the emphasis on education (the ground floor) and social gathering (The Great Hall Balcony), The Met is a place of gossip, laughter, show-off, ideas, analysis, reflection, and conversations about art and life. An old museum is always new as a place of human interplay.

I don’t know what the museum of the future should look like, but I do know that they should always emulate what The Met has achieved. It is my favorite museum in New York because of the new experiences I have there every single time I visit, as I engage with art, architecture, and people. The Met, like the Guggenheim, is attention grabbing architecturally, it just takes a deeper look.

Sources:

  1. For a short read to get yourself thinking about the duality, or lack thereof, between art and architecture see this post.
  2. The Guardian article, “What should our museums look like in 2020?”
  3. Art Practical’s “Architecture and the Museum.”
  4. More about The MET on ‘New York Architecture’ here.
  5. For a short synopsis about the museum’s architectural history, see the blog post “The Museum, Constructed,” written by an intern.
  6. For a comprehensive overview of the museum’s architectural history, see Morrison H. Heckscher’s study, written for the museum’s 1995 bulletin.
  7. I owe many thanks to Alexandra Lange for her thoughts and ideas in the “What Should a Museum Be?” chapter in her book Writing About Architecture, and to Ada Louise Huxtable for her musings in the “Museums” section of her book On Architecture.

University Village: Brutalist Delights and a Fierce Debate

Daniel J BorreroLeave a comment

What is it about the towers-in-the park complexes in Greenwich Village that captivate me so much? How can a person trained in the nuances of urban design feel such affection for a type of design that has been proven to suffocate city life?

University Village, like Washington Square Village (WSV) directly to the north, is another modernist success. Is it the best example of city planning? Probably not. But the space works, and the three magnificent brutalist structures are well deserving of their landmark status.

The struggle to designate the buildings, the plaza, and the entire superblock as a city landmark began with an NYU plan, a proposal which would later become NYU2031. When NYU revealed its plans to develop the University Village site, the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation (GVSHP) fought back, citing the sanctity of the supermarket and the architectural statement of the buildings, considered a turning point in the career of architectural firm I. M. Pei & Associates (with lead designer James Ingo Freed).

And what a turning point it was. I discovered University Village when I went on a walking tour around NYU’s campus for an environmental science course. I still hadn’t found my appreciation for the art of architecture just yet, but something already drew me back to this place. After that tour, I couldn’t help but gaze up at the towers in wonder every time I walked by. The repeating sequence of recessed windows, the 20-feet concrete shear walls, and the less grey, more brown representation of the bare concrete construction produced a feeling of dignity within me, as I can now recognize it. And isn’t that at least one of the purposes of good architecture, to conjure in people emotional responses to their surroundings in a way that moves them?

One of the main reasons why University Village works, like WSV, is because the site is not completely de-mapped. Wooster Street between Bleecker and West Houston still exists, paved in brick instead of asphalt to match the earthy tone of the buildings. Cars can still drive in and out, to pick or drop off people and materials, but it has mainly become a walking space for pedestrians looking for a detour from regular city-life.

One of the reasons why plazas like this can never be perfect, I think, is because even though they are open to the public, people can still feel a sense of, “Do I belong here?” when they’re exploring. I definitely felt it the first few times I came back without a group, a remnant of Jane Jacobs’ idea of “the institution of turf” [see The Death and Life of Great American Cities, p. 60.].

The reasons why University Village was landmarked, however, are the same reasons why that feeling of not belonging isn’t as present in this plaza as in others. The larger copy of Picasso’s “Bust of Sylvette” by Carl Nesjar sits slightly off-center in the grassed part of the plaza; its rough cement work mirrors that of the buildings, ties the design together, and morphs it into a more human scale. Freed and Pei’s ‘pin-wheel’ design ensures that all three of the buildings have clear sight-lines and work off of one another, creating a smooth interplay of structure and void. The plaza also thoughtfully includes a long concrete bench for leisure, curious designs for outdoor lighting, and a small forest of trees at the North East corner. Art, architecture, and planning work together here to welcome people into what otherwise may be a foreboding place.

For a look inside Silver Towers (the two University Village buildings dedicated to NYU faculty and grad students) and the amazing views they offer, as well as the vibrant stories of three families who have called the village home, Curbed author Rebecca Bengal wrote a touching article earlier this year, “Living on a NYU Superblock.” In this piece, she mentions a heated online forum that she found while researching, where commenters documented the turbulent views of the complex’s worth. I actually stumbled upon this forum myself, and it is quite illuminating to see both opinions from a decade ago, when decisions had not yet been made final, and how fired up citizens can become in the name of city history and beauty. It’s somewhat heartwarming, no matter the opinion.

Each commenter had their point. Some argued on the basis of beauty [“these towers… are a scourge on the city landscape” vs. “They are simply among the most attractive modernist apartment buildings in the city”], others on the basis of the complex’s history [“this is a Robert Moses housing project that surely replaced hundreds of beautiful old buildings” vs “The old stuff is gone. The Pei buildings are with us. They may or may not be better than what they replaced, but… they are very high quality architecture”]. This forum is a microcosm of the complex world of preservation: Which points do you consider? How do they work together? Are some more important in some cases than others? It is also fertile ground for debates over the merit of beauty and the merit of subjective tastes in deciding what the fabric of a city will look like.

In this author’s opinion, University Village offers New York City a lively aspect of healthy cities- variety, and a beautifully unique variety at that. May they stand, literally and figuratively, the test of time.

Architecture is the learned game, correct and magnificent, of forms assembled in the light. – Le Corbusier

Reimagining Rockaway: The Boardwalk

Daniel J BorreroLeave a comment

The wooden Rockaway Beach Boardwalk was an icon. Begun in the early 20th-century, the boardwalk was completed in the 1930s and helped maintain Rockaway’s status as a grand summer resort on the Atlantic.

If you’ve never been to Rockaway before, I encourage you to take a visit there. When I was a sophomore in college, a classmate in one of my Environmental Science courses said that, “There’s no nature in NYC.” She wasn’t from New York, so I told her to get out of Manhattan sometime if she had the chance. I told her to take the A to Rockaway. Lay on the beach, visit Riis Park, wander Fort Tilden and Edgemere and Bayswater. Go kayaking in the bay and step foot onto one of the marshes. She’d even have a nice view along the way.

You won’t be able to experience the wonder that was the original wooden boardwalk, however. That structure was destroyed by Hurricane Sandy in 2012. I was a senior in high school at the time, and I can remember my last time on the boardwalk- practicing volleyball with my friends while I forgot about college applications for a little bit.

Just a week later, our communities had been ravaged. Sections of the wooden boardwalk lay scattered in the street amongst overturned cars and other debris. Concrete pilings stretched for miles through the rubble, like soldiers readying for battle. I took a picture of my friend as we made our way through the destruction; it felt like the end of the world.

The new boardwalk is objectively safer, sturdier, and more resilient than the last one. But in the minds of long-time Rockaway residents, is it better? Can the modernists’ love affair with concrete ever emotionally compare with the dear memories of wooden planks?

When you drive in from Queens over the Cross Bay Veterans Memorial Bridge, head straight toward the beach. Once you’ve parked, continue to the boardwalk and you’ll be met by an entrance scene that spills out onto the sidewalk, embracing you with open arms and beckoning you to view the superb coastal scene on the other side.

The promise of a new Rockaway is symbolized in this entrance way. No longer forgotten by the city, no longer known for its dog attacks and deteriorating homes and infrastructure, Rockaway now welcomes visitors in troves as it strives to return to its fin-de-siècle glory.

All along the boardwalk graceful and playful vistas reign. In the Beach 30s the boardwalk is a faithful companion to the new Far Rockaway Park by WXY Studio, whose physical structures recall parasols, gull wings, and beach towels blowing in the wind. In the Beach 70s the boardwalk acts as an esplanade for the inhabitants of the sturdy new development of Arverne by the Sea. Through the Beach 80s and 90s smaller but no less marvelous entrance pathways that wind like serpents and are lined by native beach plants lead the way to revamped concessions. Passing through the Beach 100s the boardwalk provides the backdrop for historic, mural-ed bus stops that depict striking aquatic scenes, and it ends in the Beach 120s in a look-out station for kids and curious adults a like.

The new boardwalk was highly contested. For many, concrete represented an end to the beach-style life that Rockaway residents prided themselves on living.

But the City of New York no longer wanted Rockaway to be known as the city’s refuse. Residents were included in the design process so that the final structure would represent there hopes and ambitions for a united community; a community that will not lift up a white flag as it stares down the harrowing face of climate change and sea level rise.

Portions of the boardwalk were turned to concrete before 2012. These sections were a mess. Meant to reflect the look and texture of sand, the individual blocks seemed too chaotically different from each other: they weren’t all the same texture and never seemed to line up correctly. They did, however, hold up in the storm, a foreshadow of change to come.

The new boardwalk is an engaging light grey-blue color, inlaid with stone and glass, and it doesn’t shallowly try to imitate the environment it lives in. Instead it works with it, offering a contrast of color and sliding nicely into, and fortifying, the natural dune ecosystem. Undulating lines that look like waves separate the bike lanes from the walking paths, and thoughtfully designed lifeguard stations, water fountains, and wooden benches (made from the original boardwalk wood) abound.

I find the boardwalk a beacon of environmentally sound and beautifully designed infrastructure that sets up Rockaway Beach for its long awaited renaissance.

Emblazoned in light-blue is the community’s signature. Can you spot it as you take-off from or land at JFK? Or perhaps you can figure it out using a different perspective from right there on the ground.

You only have to cast your eyes on [architecture] to feel the presence of the past [and] the spirit of a place… – I.M. Pei

Good? Better? No, the Best of Beaux-Arts Architecture.

Daniel J BorreroLeave a comment

This week’s post is dedicated to a person who had an astounding impact on my life, Mrs. Annmarie Todes.

Mrs. Todes was my 6th grade humanities teacher. She was a person of the most devoted, humble, and loving nature. 6th grade was a huge transition for me: I started middle school relatively far from my home in a new school where I knew almost no one else and where the academic rigor challenged me. Mrs. Todes helped me through that.

Looking back, I think that she saw something in me that I did not and could not see in myself. My grades were poor in 6th grade and I did not feel as if I was living up to expectations. But Mrs. Todes treated me no differently than the other kids in my grade. Though she didn’t work one-on-one with me often, in the moments she could she did her best to help me understand what I was doing and why it mattered. She cultivated in me, though I did not sense it at the time, an affinity for writing, for history, and for art. Without her guidance, in 6th grade and beyond, I don’t think I would have found my passion, or many of the successes I’ve achieved. For that I am forever grateful.

Mrs. Todes passed away last week. Just a week earlier, when I found out she was in hospice, I sent her an email asking her what her favorite building and/or public place in New York City was. Her two answers surprised me at first: the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the New York Public Library (NYPL) Main Branch at 42nd St.

I expected her to tell me a little known place in NYC that she frequented, someplace she found solace in. Perhaps it was home to some obscure knowledge that she loved to enlighten other people with. But after sitting with her response for a few hours, I realized that it made perfect sense.

Where else in NYC can you find such generous reserves detailing the history of humankind in all of its splendor? Where else in NYC might a person with the utmost curiosity in the human experience, its grandeur and its grief, and the passion for sharing it with others, spend her time learning? The Met I am saving for another post; here, I’d like to take a look at the NYPL Main Branch, one of the finest examples of Beaux-Arts architecture, through Mrs. Todes’ eyes.

—

Beaux-Arts architecture works because it inspires. Eclecticism reigns: the beaux arts combines the grandiosity of Ancient Greece and Rome with the humanism of the Renaissance and the theatricality of the Baroque. At the NYPL, Carrére and Hastings brought Dr. John Shaw Billings’ scrap paper vision into breathtaking reality.

Austere and commanding, the lions Patience and Fortitude sit outside. They welcome researchers, tourists, students, families, explorers… anyone really, the library is proud to be a public institution, into the over 100 miles of written knowledge found inside.

As Vincent Scully might have felt, you enter the building like royalty. Astor Hall fills you with a belief that anything is possible by sheer virtue of its bright, beautiful Vermont marble. You have two options, continue forward through the majestic archways, or give in to the gravity of the grand staircases on either side- like I always am.

Ascending these stairs, and those beyond, is an act of wonder and anticipation. The intricate bronze-work of the chandeliers, the delicate stone moulding, and the stature of the strong marble blocks finds no match in almost any other building in the country.

Waiting for you at the end of it all is the McGraw Rotunda and the Rose Main Reading Room. These burst alive with panels and corinthian pilasters of dark, walnut wood. Stunning paintings depict the virtuous history of the written word and the pure revelation of a blue sky infused with dazzling light and wispy clouds. How could one not feel the urge to learn as much as they could about the world?

The Main Branch, and other successful Beaux-Arts buildings, embody a striking duality: they are filled and adorned with opulence, yet they are humble, and strong. Mrs. Todes did more than just peruse the building and garner intelligence from its books, she became the living embodiment of the Main Branch and its doctrines. Resilient and strong-willed, she also gave as much as herself to other people as she could. Mrs. Todes opened her heart to others like the library, with thrall, offers its liveliness and wisdom to the citizens of New York.

The 20th-Century International Style rejected the Beaux-Arts and its frivolity. But in the best examples of Beaux-Arts architecture, in which care and consideration for design and materials are upheld, frivolity vanishes. Grandeur takes its place, which lends itself to inspiration and transformative experiences. I think that Mrs. Todes recognized this. I can imagine her walking through the halls and stairways of the Main Branch in exhilaration, forever leaving her touch on the building- and then on all that she encountered.

For that, I and so many others are forever grateful.

Gaudeamus igitur
Iuvenes dum sumus.
Post iucundam iuventutem
Post molestam senectutem
Nos habebit humus.