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March 23, 2007
Matta-Clark & other Unravelings
Its come to my attention that I dont need to draw any more attention to all the attention Moses is getting around town, but the Gordon Matta-Clark show at that Whitney is worth a note; and lots more Attention. Ouroussoff gives a nice review, with some plum pot shots at the establishment. Very fitting in New York's second Gilded Age of luxury ad nauseum. Abusurdity riots across the island. Its not that architecture has become another medal on greeds chest, another inbred lap dog for the fat necked financier. Its always been that. Its the lack of physical (lord knows theres enough theoretical) discourse that offers any alternative to Luxury or Fedder. I think that goes a long way in explaining the tremendous resurgence of interest in the short yet brilliant output of Matta-Clark. Ediciones Poligrafa released a wonderful book of previously unavailable writing this past fall. Apparently the CCA is finally allowing some access to their Matta-Clark archives, from which this book is a result. Brilliant. Heres to hoping for more Matta-Clark praxis, and less greasy carreer climbing (dash).
This city is flush with construction but flaccid with questions, is it any curiosity the nations largest builder of mcmansion tract housing has had a "hot hot year" in New York? We're suffocating under the weight of becoming what we've always been, a reflection of where Americas cities are today; bland replications and sordid hyperboles of what vibrant urban amalgamations might be - could be. Where have all Those people gone? I love J.Nouvel's 40 Mercer, R.Meier's Perry St, S.Holl's Higgin Hall, Shop's Porter House...but homes for the rich, halls for the matriculated. Is that it? Have architects become Nothing but executive assistants? Where is the Challenge, the Engagement of Urban form? Is urbanism dead to all but Planning Beaureaucrats? This is Gilded Age New York. We, as Lovers & Haters of the City & OF Architecture, demand more. More than the malling and gating of these grids, more than ticket blitzes and fedder fueled building booms. More than slick renderings and theoretical preening. More than Hadidism. More than well drinks sold as cocktails, more Praxis, less prattle. The rats have moved in and they want their city back. Destroy the Dynamism they whisper, build me a glass cul-de-sac in the sky, and sweep them to the side. Its more - more to the soul of where urbanism gets thought, where architecture gets manifested, who gets to be there. They are company men doling out company expectations on this city. Don't offend, they might get you a job, make you famous. Please Them. Quiet, controlled, cordoned, and quelled. My Old Lady won't die. She's watching, waiting.
Posted by jmarston at 12:04 PM | Comments (4)
March 20, 2007
Love New York, Fuck New York, Burn New York
"We can't accept market indicators, personal success, aesthetic fashion, some vague formal mysticism, indices of giddiness and titillation, or the mere expression of cultural differences, as the criteria for an appropriate, purportedly significant architectural practice in this age of incomplete nihilism."
- Alberto Perez-Gomez
Posted by jmarston at 02:54 PM | Comments (3)
March 16, 2007
Unrealistic Dreams for New York City’s Waterfront
Today’s news of the fate of the Red Hook container port – death – has sent my mind into a tailspin. Say nothing of the Port Authority’s siphoning of NYC tax dollars into Jersey’s coffers by killing this facility. It’s more about What is NYC’s waterfront. First it was the thought of a Battery Park on the waterfront in Williamsburg, now this. It’s enough to force me into writing a wildly unedited rant against all that is Waterfront Development in New York City. Perhaps I’m rendered ridiculous in my propositions, but at least its something against waterfronts becoming Sanitized backyards for Toll Brothers new cul-de-sacs in the sky.
In the unrelenting push to transform New York’s (fast disappearing) disinvested & derelict waterfronts into mini-gyms and leisure land, we blushingly spend millions on access upgrades, landscaping, and facilities. We can’t seem to line up the politicians quick enough; writers wax nostalgic about accessible waterfronts and sappy sun sets in front of security personal and Toll Bros condos; even planners & designers jump on board with slick renderings and soft stories of public space. Seemingly no one can say No to a new park, a new leisure site, semi-private playground for money managers. This climate is stifling. As New York City races to rezone, and regrade our waterfronts into rollerblade routes we might better ask ourselves some questions about the singularity of our imagination. About the futurity and fundamental benefit of miles of riverfront esplanades. The waterfront, in its many roles, is not a singular utensil in the amalgamation of real estate booty & reelection campaigns. There are ways to think about the city’s assets as more than just playgrounds. Here we are investing massive resources in snipping our economic link with the engine that built the city in the first place. In a fever pitched rush to capitalize on real estate dollars, we dump millions into (questionably) tasteful re-fittings. This is without mentioning the many fatwa, signed by Doomberg, against New York’s historical waterfront: paving of the graving dock, sugar factory destruction are just two that come to mind.
Manhattan; surrounded on all sides by water, at its widest 2.3 miles, and yet we refuse to utilize those waterways as anything but postcards? That, and we spend millions to give us access to that spectacle, but nothing on engaging it. Our rivers and bays are economic engines of transport and renewable energy, which could serve All New Yorkers in a myriad of ways. What might be imaginative development for one of the finest in transportation resources a city can be graced with? Take a simple farmers market. What would even a tenth of the freight tunnel monies provide in setting up waterfront farmers markets, where your produce is brought to you by sail? There are millions of dollars spent each year in inter-boro & regional truck transport, stressing our bridges, our streets, our health, our safety, costing everyone more than we might dare imagine, and an alternative stares us in the face. We locate nothing but Developer cash outs next to our waterways. What a shame. It would take tremendous imagination and an integrated effort on behalf the DOT, the DCP, amongst a litany of political wills. But the payouts are beyond the pale, beyond the joy of a new park under the shadows of some speculative lux-condo. Battery Park Shitty. What will the congestion charge do to your DAG grocery bill when the lettuce shipped from LIC is taxed to pay for it? New Yorkers will continue to be footing the bill as we deliver our goods to the city by heavy-truck. Yet we want to solve it thru big dig plans like the freight tunnel, only mitigating the issue so slightly – too the tune of billions of dollars in infrastructure. That’s all the while oil prices stay steady. Our bridges, tunnels, streets, pedestrians, are paying the price for Truck Traffic. A congestion charge will not change the need to have goods delivered into Manhattan. Queens based electricians don’t base their trips into Manhattan on convenience, but business. Of course the elite aren’t worried, they’re car service is already in Manhattan. What about human transportation hubs linked by waterfront; New Millennium Fulton Ferry, which is to say, Get serious about water taxis, water buses, and water ferries. They’re not viable because no networks exist at the terminus of the taxi, and the city has yet to think imaginatively about the resources of water-based travel around the city, or put any serious resources into planning and integrating them into existing networks.
Housing on the river, in the river, with the river. Low-rise row houses built out into the Hudson River. Engaging the edge, moving past the threshold of the shore. Where a garage stores a boat, which takes you up to Fairway in Harlem, to Beacon on a Saturday, to the Kips Bay theatre. Pick up your friend in Astoria, sailing over to Coney Island. We need to think about creating housing integrated with the riverfront and it’s varied uses, not just dumpy Trump towers scoping the Hudson-Jersey scene. Look at the Docklands project in Amsterdam, real docks, real integration, and real grace. Sign me up. Where are all the marinas? Wind Power based on our waterfront corridors. Water Power, i.e. East River, again natural geography creates profound opportunity for energy extraction, hitherto unused. Imagine the Water as Power. Strategies that utilize this maxim; Movement, Energy.
We don’t USE the water anymore; rather, we place ourselves next to it, by it, in relation to it, without exploring the USES of it. We stand on the edge of the spectacle. Imagine more than a Setting. More than a View, a Sports Club, a Feast of Skin and Sun; we may have hundreds of miles of it, but until this point we’ve built nothing But this. Much of the measure of success of cities today is in Parks – but at what point do leisure sites become so pervasive that they override their original purpose and erode the possibility of creating alternative sites?
Posted by jmarston at 05:30 PM | Comments (345)