The High Line

On Christmas day we went for a walk on Manhattan, through Greenwich Village, Soho and the Meatpacking district. I love the color and textures of these neighborhoods, the low (for New York!) brownstone buildings, the former industrial buildings turned art galleries, apartments and boutiques, and the not quite so touristy atmosphere. 

  

I was quite taken with this recent piece of architecture that blended so beautifully in amongst the brownstones. The street facade is clad in Corten steel, and I'm guessing it has a higher degree of transparency on the opposite facade.

Always when I travel, I have a list of what I want to see, both art and architecture, and drag my poor husband and kids around... This time in New York, I only had two things on my list: the occasional public sculpture and The High line. I had really high (excuse the pun, couldn’t resist) hopes for The High Line, and I was not disappointed. I’m a firm believer in new thinking around established phenomena, in this case the urban public park. To be elevated above street level and experience the city from another viewpoint had a greater impact on me than what I expected. It’s also an efficient use of valuable street level space and, most importantly, reusing excisting structures is both ecological and creates some unexpected spaces with valuable links to the past. I can highly recommend it, if you haven’t been there already.

The High Line is a public park built on an historic freight rail line elevated above the streets on Manhattan’s West Side. The first section of the High Line opened in 2009. It runs from Gansevoort Street in the Meatpacking District to West 20th Street. The second section, which runs between West 20th and West 30th Streets, opened two years later. 

The High Line is owned by the City of New York, and maintained and operated by Friends of the High Line. Founded in 1999 by community residents, Friends of the High Line fought for the High Line’s preservation and transformation at a time when the historic structure was under the threat of demolition. In addition to overseeing maintenance, operations, and public programming for the park, Friends of the High Line works to raise the essential private funds to support more than 90 percent of the park’s annual operating budget, and to advocate for the preservation and transformation of the High Line at the Rail Yards, the third and final section of the historic structure, which runs between West 30th and West 34th Streets.

The High Line was built in the 1930s, as part of a massive public-private infrastructure project called the West Side Improvement. It lifted freight traffic 30 feet in the air, removing dangerous trains from the streets of Manhattan's largest industrial district. No trains have run on the High Line for more than three decades. The last train chugged along the High Line in 1980, carrying three carloads of frozen turkeys.

The design team of landscape architects James Corner Field Operations, with architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro, created the High Line's public landscape. Construction on the park began in 2006. For a relatively narrow and straight stretch of parallel tracks, I was impressed with the great variety of spaces they've created. The High Line's planting design is inspired by the self-seeded landscape that grew on the out-of-use elevated rail tracks during the 25 years after trains stopped running. Many of the species that originally grew on the High Line's rail bed are incorporated into the park's landscape. It may sound funny, but I really liked the winter dullness of the plants, all brown and not much to look at. It really added to the intended effect of the natural elements taking over an old industrial installation.

 

In recent years, the High Line has been adding interesting art along its length and even on the billboards facing the linear park. Now, public art seems to be spreading outwards into neighboring Chelsea, a long-time gallery destination.

“The river that flows both ways”. This installation is part of High Line Art, a program that introduces site-specific works that respond to the park’s unique qualities.Inspired by the Hudson River, Spencer Finch’s The River That Flows Both Ways (between West 15th and West 16th Streets) documents a 700-minute (11 hours, 40 minutes) journey on the river in a single day. The title is a translation of Muhheakantuck, the Native American name for the Hudson, referring to the river’s natural flow in two directions. Like the rail line that existed on the High Line, the Hudson River was, and still is, an active route for the transportation of goods into Manhattan. The river and the High Line have always been linked in their geography, their function, and their imprints on the industrial legacy of the city. 

From a tugboat drifting on Manhattan’s west side and past the High Line, Finch photographed the river’s surface once every minute. The color of each pane of glass was based on a single pixel point in each photograph and arranged chronologically in the tunnel’s existing steel mullions. Time is translated into a grid, reading from left to right and top to bottom, capturing the varied reflective and translucent conditions of the water’s surface. The work, like the river, is experienced differently depending on the light levels and atmospheric conditions of the site. In this narrative orientation, the glass reveals Finch’s impossible quest for the color of water. I really loved how the artist used an existing structure (the old framework) to create something new. It reminded me a bit of the modern, pixelated new take on the stained glass window in the Cologne cathedral by one of my many favorites, Gerhard Richter. 

“Busted” is a series of contemporary busts amid the High Line’s public gardens. Artist Steven Claydon, created UNLIMITEDS & LIMITERS, which humorously plays with the idea of the traditional bust, with doubles in resin and concrete. 

Getty Station is a public art program based at the former Getty filling station conceived by real estate developer and art collector Michael Shvo to bring outdoor exhibitions to a broad audience in the center of the High Line arts district. The program centers on site specific installations as an opportunity to incorporate a classic twentieth century American icon into the contemporary art dialogue. I just missed Sheep Station (it ended in late fall) which showcased 25 of late artist François-Xavier Lalanne’s iconic epoxy stone and bronze ‘Moutons’. Lalanne’s first iteration of the sculptures was his infamous ‘Moutons de Laine’ in 1965, gradually expanding this particular body of work to include additional variations of the sculpture in epoxy stone and bronze in 1977. Set in a surrealist landscape amidst the existing industrial gas station architecture, the sheep symbolized Lalanne’s mission to demystify art. 

To me, even this New York phenomenon below could be an art installation, commenting the implications of urban density....But it's not! It's just an impressive parking structure:-)

Some "architect- nerdiness", a close up of a great material combo...

 

I really recommend this great video on YouTube, it gives you a  good overview and understanding of the High Line project and it's relation to the surrounding city. I also recommend this website for more info.

The Glass House

As I was moving a bunch of pictures from an old harddrive to a new one the other day, I thought I might share with you some of the amazing works of architecture I've visited on study trips over the years. I guess I already started in my previous post. From the rusty, decaying war machine in the middle of the ocean, this one is the complete opposite. It's a beautiful house, a piece of jewellery almost. I always appreciate works that take me by surprise, even provoke me, but at first glance this one is just beautiful. These iconic mid century houses are not very relevant to our daily architecture struggles, but they were often subject to a lot of controversy at the time they were built, and that is something we should learn from. Not that we should cause a stir for the sake of controversy, but we could all be more stubborn and courageous in our endeavours to push the field of architecture further. 

Philip Johnson's Glass House is mostly hidden from the street in a vast green estate, or park, rather. It lies behind a stone wall at the edge of a crest in his estate overlooking a pond. A short walk over grass and gravel paths takes you to the house. The house is a simple rectangular glass and charcoal- painted steel structure. The kitchen, dining and sleeping areas are all in one glass-enclosed room. The space is divided by low walnut cabinets; a brick cylinder containing the bathroom is the only object to reach floor to ceiling. This is the only room that is sheltered from the outside.

 

The Glass House builds on ideas of German architects from the 1920s ("Glasarchitektur"). In a house of glass, the views of the landscape are its “wallpaper”. I have very expensive wallpaper, Johnson once said. Johnson was inspired by the design of Mies van der Rohe. Being a huge Mies van der Rohe fan, I used to think Philip Johnsons Glass House (1949) had too many similarities to the Farnsworth house (if you don't know it, google it- you're in for a treat). So many that I didn't really pay too much attention to it. I was lucky enough to visit it in New Canaan, Connecticut some years ago, and realized that apart from the aparent similarities, there's a major conceptual difference that "justifies" it. Whereas the Farnsworth house floats above the ground, the Glass House is heavily grounded. It's floor is a "cultivated" piece of the ground beneath it, paved with brick, while the floor of the Farnsworth house is a part of the steel structure that balances on slender columns that touch the ground, like a spaceship that just landed. The relationship to the ground is also reflected in the use of materials. The brick refers to the ground.

The Glass House itself is inferior to Farnsworth House in "intellectual rigor" and exquisite detailing, according to Nicolai Ouroussoff. For instance, he wrote, the steel I-beams at the corners of Johnson's building "are clumsily detailed — especially disconcerting in a work of such purity." Nevertheless, the building is "a legitimate aesthetic triumph", with the glass walls beautifully layering silhouetted and reflected images layered on each other, the critic wrote. "The classical references alluded to by its thin brick base and the symmetrical proportions of its frame demonstrate the range of Johnson’s historical knowledge."

As a curator at the Museum of Modern Art, Johnson had publicized Mies' work, and the American acknowledged his debt to the German architect, particularly in a 1950 interview in Architectural Digest magazine. Even though Johnson's building was completed a year before Mies's glass house, Johnson's building "was universally viewed as having been derived from it", according to Alice T. Friedman, architectural historian and professor of American art history at Wellesley. Johnson curated an exhibit of Mies work at the Museum of Modern Art in 1947, featuring a model of the Farnsworth House.

The Glass House resulted in recognition for Johnson, not just in architectural circles, but among the public at large. The house was featured in LIFE magazine, and the New York Times Magazine published a set of cartoons about it. "What really sets Johnson apart (...)" Michael Sorkin wrote in 1978, "is his aptitude for publicity (...) If it was Mies van der Rohe who provided the real inspiration for the Glass House (...) it was only Johnson who could have built the house and lived in it himself. Johnson's career began when he turned himself into the Man in the Glass House. In an instant, he became the austere apostle for modern architecture- or rather the modern apostle for austere architecture."

The building created such a stir that at one point a police officer was posted nearby to keep out trespassers, and Johnson put up a sign near the street, stating: "This House Is Now Occupied Please Respect the Privacy of the Owner. The home also created a stir for Mies van der Rohe, who "stormed out in a huff when he saw it", Ouroussoff, a New York Times architecture critic, wrote. Obviously derived from Mies's Farnsworth House, the fact that it was finished earlier could easily have made the German architect wonder whether others would get the impression that Johnson had instead done pioneering work for Mies, and it could be seen that "Johnson’s vision lacked the intellectual rigor and exquisite detailing that were so critical to Mies’s genius", according to Ouroussoff.

Most of the furniture is  designed by Mies van der Rohe.

 

The most controversial, as well as stunning, feature of this house is, obviously, the deegree of  transparancy. Remember this was 1949. We probably all agree that it's a beautiful house, but was it a good home? Johnson eventually abandoned it and used it only for entertaining. He slept in the Brick House, which was initially used for guest rooms. In my mind, this suggests that he realised that he'd stretched his transparent living experiment  too far. The house turned into a modernist showroom or pavillion instead of a home. Architecture that doesn't "work" feels a bit hollow. Often the emphasis on the aesthetics has been to strong. It's not hard to design a beautiful pavillion, combining beauty with all the aspects of functionality is more challenging and puts your aesthetic choises to the test.

Don't get me wrong, I love this house, it's absolutely stunning, but it's a pavillion, not a home. After more than 60 years, we still find the Glass House beautiful, but extremely challenging. Being sheltered and having one's back covered are fundamental human needs that seem unaffected by time. Even surrounded by your own private park, the feeling when it gets dark and outside makes you feel very vulnerable. The Farnsworth hose has floor to ceiling curtains, which, as some say, are a sign of a failed concept. I don't agree at all. I think the curtains are a beautiful feature, and gives the house an almost immaterial glow when viewed in the dark from the outside. I think we're still not ready for life in the Glass House. Which, of course, makes it even more intriguing!

To the left, the sculpture Two circus women by Elie Nadalman, 1930

This picture is so bad, my apologies for adding it, but I just had to show you this column. It captures the essence of what I love so much about modernist steel and glass architecture. It's the use of standard steel elements, the appreciation of the aesthetics of the constructive, loadbearing elements. This exudes honesty, nothing is covered or hidden. Mies van der Rohe was the master of this, his repertoir of steel elements is amazing, the constructions are so elegant that no extra fuss is needed. Less is indeed more.

 

The room- dividing cabinets is a feature that I really, really love. The wood surfaces are so beautiful and add so much warmth. Check out the cabinets in the Farnsworth house too- oh my goodness...

Johnson lived in the Glass house with his partner of 45 years, David Whitney, the curator, collector and advocate of modern art. The landscape surrounding the buildings was designed by Johnson and Whitney, with "manicured" areas of gravel or grass, trees grouped in what Johnson called outdoor "vestibules", and with care taken in the shape of the slopes and curves of the ground. In part, the landscape was a reflection of a landscape painting, The Funeral of Phocion by Nicolas Poussin (circa 1648) placed in a seating area of Glass House. The estate overlooks the valley of the small Rippowam River to the west (seen from the back of Glass House, past a grassy rise). To the north and south are sloping scenery that particularly mimic the painting. The landscape design is another fundamental difference from the Farnsworth house, which is situated in a natural wood.

Johnson designed the Painting gallery (completed in 1965) to house the collection of large scale modern paintings that he and Whitney collected throughout their lifetimes. It contains works by Frank Stella, Andy warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, Cindy Sherman and Julian Schnabel. The exterior is a grass covered mound with a monumental entrance, inspired by ancient tombs.

 

Philip Johnson by Andy Warhol, 1972

The sculpture gallery was completed in 1970. It has a glass ceiling supported by tubular steel rafters, that cast a complew pattern of light and shadows. This building was Johnsons favorite and he seriously considered moving in.

Raft of the Medusa by Frank Stella, 1990

Neon templates of the left half of my body taken at ten inch intervals by Bruce Nauman, 1966

Lovers on a bed II by George Segal, 1970

Robert Rauschenberg's Empire II, 1961 (above)

The Archbishop, the golfer and Ralph by John Chamberlain, 1982- 83

Johnson wanted to preserve his estate as a public monument. The house was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1997. It was the place of Philip Johnson's passing on January 25, 2005 at the age of 98. Johnson passed on ownership of the Glass House to the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which opened it to visitors in April 2007.

The grounds contain several follies, or pavillions in addition to the two gallery buildings mentioned above. They are all radically different in style, so much so, that I found it a bit too much. I didn't photograph them all, I kept my focus on the "crown jewel" the Glass House. If you want to see more, I can highly recommend a visit to philipjohnsonglasshouse.org