Along the Hudson River much of the area was destroyed after hurricane sandy, but you can still imagine what could of been in these area before it was flooded.
VIA 57 West
This building was designed by Bjarke Ingels and is Ingels’s first New York project. The building is angled at a 45-degree angle. The pyramid-like structure has been described as a hybrid between a European perimeter block and a traditional Manhattan high-rise.
Lincoln Center
Lincoln Center is a performing arts complex that has three main buildings: David Geffen Hall, David H. Koch Theater, and the Metropolitan Opera House, all of which opened in the 1960s, under John D. Rockefeller III who raised $184.5 million to build the complex. Each has many performance halls and is home to the New York Philharmonic, the New York City Ballet, and the Metropolitan Opera. The entire complex has 30 indoor and outdoor performance spaces and these buildings helped make the area surrounding Lincoln Square a cultural hub. The space is also home to The Julliard School, the School of American Ballet, and The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.
The most magnificent room is the East Room. The East Room was designed as a treasury for Pierpont Morgan’s enormous collection of rare printed books. It’s three-story high and is decorated with an amazing painted ceiling and a giant fireplace. The ceiling of his library is arranged in a way where it tells a hidden message related to the key events in his personal life. The ceiling has a geometric structure filled with murals of some of the greatest literary, mythological and influential humans that he admired, such as Socrates and Michelangelo. There are two undercover staircases that are concealed behind the bookcases that provide a secret passageway that leads to access to the balcony. The Library has a significant collection of handwritten, medieval manuscripts of writers, rare books, ancient scriptures and artifacts, Renaissance masterpieces, and original artworks and compositions from some of the greatest artists, musicians, and authors of all time. One of these items is three copies of a Bible printed by Johannes Gutenberg in 1455. Each item was purchased by Pierpont Morgan himself, while some of the items in the East Room have been acquired after his death.
The Morgan Library and Museum really showed J.P. Morgan’s identity. Many of the pieces of work in his library show what his interest are, especially his collection of books and artwork. The moment you step in you see a beautiful marble hallway with an amazing painted ceiling and marble columns. The ceilings paintings have small gold accents that help the paintings pop. I did like how the ceilings weren’t just flat but had curves with many different geometric shapes. Each part of the ceiling was filled with some type of artwork and has no black spaces. Throughout the Museum, there weren’t many empty spaces, I feel like Morgan liked a room to be filled with either his massive collection of rare printed books, his Renaissance paintings, or just with color.
The Rotunda
When entering the Morgan Library and Museum your eyes are automatically drawn toward the mosaic panels that line the curved ceiling, called The Rotunda. The ceiling that was made by H. Siddons Mowbray and the artwork contains inspiration from the Renaissance, the ancient world and the Middle Ages. Each of these styles is represented in Pierpont Morgan’s collections. The room where this ceiling is located in the center of the Library and was inspired by the Villa Madama in Rome. This room also includes marble columns on each corner and on display are a sampling of different manuscripts, such as letters from George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.
The West Room
The West Room is very bold. It’s filled with lots of burgundy details, such as a red silk lining on the walls, red couches, and a massive fireplace. The low wooden selves were used to contain his large volume of rare printed books and his giant portrait of himself in one and his son in another hangover these selves. The West Room also has a solid steel vault that was used to protect Morgan’s manuscript collection. Much of the furniture and paintings were chosen by Morgan because of its Renaissance style, which made this room one of his favorites. This room was used for Morgan to privately study, work, and relax in. He would also use the room to meet with art dealers and business associates. One meeting he held here was he decided to step in during the great financial panic of 1907 to orchestrate a dramatic resolution for the major banks who were on the verge of bankruptcy.
John Singer Sargent
This drawing was made by John Singer Sargent. He was one of the greatest portrait artists of his time and had over 750 portraits drawn in his lifetime. He drew astonishing paintings early on in his career but later on switched his portraiture practice entirely to charcoal, but he kept his consistent format for all his portrait drawings. He was known for a vivid portrayal of the men and women who sat for him. These portraits showcased Sargent’s muses, many of them were famous for their roles in politics, society, entertainment, and the arts. These people helped shape the lives of people living in the United States and Great Britain in the early twentieth century. Many of the people he drew were amazed by how quickly he was able to draw the. He finished most of these charcoals drawings in a few hours. He always had a clear image of what he wanted to draw before he started. He used a dark background making the person he drew have a powerful presence. Even though he was an amazing artist he rarely promoted his career as an artist and his charcoal drawings were rarely exhibited. Most remained private to the person he drew it for.
The first place we visited was a church near the MoMA museum. It was a very brief visit and we didn’t get to look around much. There was a service going on, so we couldn’t look around, but from what I saw it is a beautiful church on the inside and the outside.
MoMA
In 1939, Director Alfred Barr and Architecture curator John McAndrew designed a sculpture garden in the first Museum of Modern Art building. It was designed in a single night and was built just a couple of weeks before the Museum’s building opened. In 1953, MoMA’s Director of Architecture and Design, Philip Johnson and landscape architect James Fanning, designed the modern Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden. This new modern garden had long, rectilinear slabs of Vermont marble as the new flooring, marble platforms, and was planted with new trees that helped people see the sculpture placed throughout the garden. When the museum expanded in the early 80s, the garden was reduced in size. It wasn’t until in the 2000s, the garden had a major renovation by Zion Breen & Richardson Associates. This renovation helped the garden become a central focus for the museum.
I really like the newly reopened MoMA. I believe it’s a major update from the older models. The newly reopened building was designed by architects Diller Scofidio and Renfro in collaboration with Gensler. To complete this update they had to close down the museum for four months, with about 47,000 additional square feet of gallery space, and a $450 million expansion and renovation. They decided to use minimal detailing and maximal spaces to add splendor to the museum’s collections. It’s very refreshing when a museum is painted in a color other than white and has more than one colored interior walls. When I was walking around, it is easier to notice how each room has its own aura because of this and this made the museum as a whole more legible.
Saar
Saar actually used tarot cards artwork from a deck that she actually owned herself to create the image below. The hand-drawn drawing shows the word Tarot in the center while there are multiple tarot cards placed around this word. The star (Les Etoiles) and moon (La Lune) are the only two things that are in color in the drawing while every other card is in black and white. You can see these similar influences in her other work. This drawing is filled with many different tarot cards and tarot cards are a tool used by psychics as a way to predict the future. I was drawn to this drawing because I have always been interested in this kind of stuff even though I have never been to a psychic before. I just find what they do really interesting.
The day started off with a small hike in Central Park. Along the walk, we were able to see many different parts of the park until we reach the end to a walkway. The walk to this part of the park was like a maze. It was very different from the floor planning of the city. It was filled with turns and different entrances to other walkways, I was wondering if I would have tried to do this walk alone if I was going to get lost. Along the way, I took this photo of a bridge. Bethesda Terrace is one of the well-known places in New York City and is considered the heart of Central Park. It was one of the very first structures to have been built in Central Park. The Terrance itself has an upper and lower level, which is connected by three staircases leading to the Mall and the Bethesda Fountain. The Bethesda Fountain is one of the largest fountains in New York being around twenty-six feet high by ninety-six feet wide. The statue in the center was the only sculpture to be part of Central Park’s original design. The structure also features an eight-foot bronze angel on top of the fountain. The angel would be the first thing viewed when walking towards the Terrance. The Terrace was made where people could experience nature and escape from the stressful, urban life. Nature was placed above architecture.
The Obelisk
The Obelisk, also known as the “Cleopatra’s Needle” was one of the towers we saw before walking into the MET. It’s the oldest man-made object in Central Park and the oldest outdoor monument in New York City. The tower is over 3,000 years old and stands at 69 feet high and weighs 220 tons. The Obelisk represents the culture before arriving at the MET. It’s a representation of New York City having a cultural monument just like other big cites. The hieroglyphics on the Obelisk’s surface are still there, but some are illegible because of the erosion. The bottom had crabs that were added to each corner to help keep it up.
The MET
The museum was divided by a new and old structure. In the area where there are many sculptures, you can see the walls differing in the materials they are made of. The wall on the left is more modern and white, while the wall on the right has the original old red brick walls from the older version of the building. Both of the walls are divided by a glass ceiling. Buildings tend to do this to show a change from one wall to another. The final part of the day was at the rooftop. It looked like a nice place to unwind after walking around the huge museum. It was filled with people sitting, looking over the balcony, and taking pictures. Along the rooftop, there is a fence, but it wasn’t a glass fence, it was a long bush fence that covered the whole rooftop. Looking over the fence there was a nice view of the city skyline. It’s always amazing to see the New York skyline and it looked like the building was on grass because of the fence.
The Panorama of the City of New York was supposed to be a celebration of the city’s complex infrastructure. The design and construction of the entire Panorama approximately cost $5 million and was built by more than 100 people over the course of three years. To get a design of the panorama the builders referred mostly to aerial photographs of the city. The panorama is made out of Formica panels and Urethane foam mounted on wood and the buildings are made out of wood, plastic, and hand-painted paper, and the bridges are made out of brass. The Panorama’s was able to switch from daytime to nighttime on its own and was covered with about 3,172 automated colored lights highlighting the City’s public buildings, such as firehouses, schools, and libraries. The Panorama also included moving airplanes that took off and landed at LaGuardia Airport. The panorama opened in 1964 and was the largest attraction during the World Fair. A lot of the attraction was due to the indoor helicopter tour of New York City that was available. The helicopter was a nine-minute-ride only cost 10 cents per person and provided an aerial view of the City. In 1992, the entire model was closed down to be brought up to date. To make updates they used 5,000 maps, 109 aerial photographs, and on-site visits to determine current conditions. About 60,000 buildings were replaced or removed and the helicopter had reached its lifetime and was removed and replaced with a glass balcony before the reopening in 1994. In 2009, the Museum launched its Adopt-a-Building program. This program allows someone to purchase real estate on the Panorama for $100 and receive a deed in exchange for their donation.
The panorama was built for the 1964 World’s Fair. It later became a permanent exhibit in the Queens Museum when the museum opened in 1972. The model has been updated since, but it’s not fully up to date with the new architecture that has been built passed 2000. Something I never knew is that the panorama is known as the world’s largest architectural model of a city in the world. The model was able to actually display New York architecture, but it lacks people, traffic, trash, and other real-life elements of New York. Even though it lacked these details the design really helped me picture how 8 million people can live in a crowded city. The city is filled with eight hundred and fifty public schools, eleven city colleges, dozens of museums, over two hundred libraries, and 6 bridges where over 160 million people annually travel between the boroughs by the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority. There are also multiple free spaces where people can enjoy themselves than to stay home. This really showed me how the city is actually made to connect people together and to get them to find new friends, learn new skills, try arts and crafts, or just enjoy a night out.
The World Fair
Both World Fair held in 1939-40 and 1964-65 was held in the Queens Museum. The first World Fair that was held in New York City, helped to create a new major park in Queens and helped revitalize New York’s economy. The second World Fair was held in New York City in 1964-65. This World Fair was held on the 25th anniversary of the 1939-40 World’s Fair. During this fair, Robert Moses was the president of the Fair Corporation and he was known for helping the city rebuilding public spaces for public use. Some of the items during this fair was the giant globe and panorama. Both of these items can still be seen in the museum today. The Museum also owns more than 900 items connected to these World Fairs. Some of these items are on display and it gives an opportunity for people who have never been to a World Fair to see some of the artwork and items that would have been shown during the time.
The Neustadt
The Neustadt is a collection of artwork made of glass, dedicated to giving a better understanding and appreciation of the artwork by Louis C. Tiffany. One thing I really enjoyed about The Neustadt was the videos they provided on how the glass was made and how they were able to have the glass morphed into shapes so it can be made into items, such as a lamp. There are many different colored and shaped lamps in the museum that used Tiffany glass. The glass was also used to create stained-glass windows that are popular today.
“Fade into black: sit, chill, look, talk, roll, play, listen, give, take, dance, share”
Pia Camil’s “Fade into black: sit, chill, look, talk, roll, play, listen, give, take, dance, share” is a 341-foot long curtain of graphic t-shirts sewed together, that were purchased from thrift shops in Mexico City. Most of these shirts include logos that have some kind of political cause or message that don’t always correlate to the culture in which they are being made. These t-shirts have been designed in the United States but manufactured in Latin America or Southeast Asia. These shirts are then bought and worn, then discarded in the United States. Then these shirts are sent back into Latin America to be sold again in thrift shops. This represents the cycle of consumerism in the United States. The work also includes lower halves of bodies on the ground where people can relax.
The Watershed Model
The Department of Water Supply, Gas, and Electricity created The Watershed Model for the 1939-1940 World Fair, which you can see in the photo below. The model was built to educate New Yorkers about the water supply system that they use every day. The Model has tiny lights that trace the flow of water from different places in New Yor state that goes through New York City. Over a billion gallons of water travel into the city every day. The Watershed Model also shows people how complex New York City is. Even though it’s a big city filled with many complexities, everything in and out of the city is closely tied to one another. This includes the ecosystem and its limited resources.
Recognize My Sign
Recognize My Sign is an exhibition that is a collection of Moufarrege’s artwork. He draws his inspiration from his own life as a gay man and his world around him. His artwork also includes many references to many things such as comic book characters, Europen paintings and sculptures, Islamic designs and art, and Pop art. I was able to identify many of the characters in his work because I either see them in today’s entertainment or learned about it in school. Moufarrege’s artwork mostly looks like some type of tapestry people would have in their home if there were into a unique style of art. To me, I sometimes can’t identify what some of his work is trying to say, but I like how different it is from other work I have seen. I like how he mixes different cultures together like how he mixed Europen paintings and Islamic writing and put them into one painting.
The Transit Museum could be mistaken for an actual subway entrance because it’s fully underground and its exterior looks exactly like a subway station stop. The museum is located in Downtown Brooklyn’s decommissioned Court Street subway station. This station was shut down in 1946 because of its lack of use and lack of funding to keep it operated. Now it became a museum to show the history of the public transit system in New York City. The museum also has an extension at Grand Central Terminal, which hosts an annual train show and it has its own exhibits where they showcase historic photos that document that line’s existence.
When the New York Transit Museum opened on July 4, 1976, it was only supposed to be a temporary museum and was only intended to remain open until September that same year. The museum actually did extremely well and they decided to keep it open and eventually became the New York Transit Museum. The responsibility of the museum was transferred to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to help with the expansion of different exhibitions to include other MTA facilities, such as Metro-North & Long Island Railroads, and MTA Bridges & Tunnels. It’s the best place to learn about the history of New York City’s public transit system and learn how it came to be. Even though the station itself is not a stop, everything from its control room to its tracks is still fully functional. The station has been used for several movies such as the 1974 film The Taking of Pelham One Two Three and the 2009 remake.
When you enter the museum, you will go through the same street entrance people in the early 1900s did. There are many different turnstiles, both vintage and modern-day that documents how fare collection has evolved over time. These turnstiles required either a paper ticket, a token or a metro card as payment. Tokens were the dominant payment for a fare on New York Subways and buses from 1953 until 2003. It was discontinued when the brass coins were replaced by a flimsy plastic Metro Card.
The museum is held in an old subway station, so you descend stairs just as you would enter any subway station in New York and enter, you pass through turnstiles like any station. The museum starts off with an amazing history of the NY transit system. The history of building the subway system and its cars are well documented, photographed, and is well laid out. The highlight is downstairs, where there is a collection of impressively preserved historical subway cars going back over 100 years. You can see how cars use to be designed and what advertisements were displaced back then.
One exhibition is “On the Streets: New York’s Trolleys and Buses,” which tells the story on how streetcars, trolleys, buses, and any upper ground public transportation have transformed from the 1800s to now. There are several small replicas that give an idea of what the above-ground traffic would have looked like back then and compare it to what we have today. You can also sit behind the wheel of an actual MTA bus of that time. Another is “Steel, Stone & Backbone: Building New York’s Subways.” It’s a lesson on how the first subway line was built in the 1900s. It was about the technology that was used to build the system and the dangers conditions workers faced in the while creating the first underground subway system. Some of these subway cars date back to the early 1900s.
The lower level of the museum has many different models of vintage subway cars. These trains gives a firsthand look at how subway cars have developed and modernized over time. You can walk inside the carts and experience trains from another time period even the ads. In front of each one of the subway models is an informational panel so you can know what you’re looking at. It includes the history of the car, like when it was introduced and how long the car functioned over its life span. The MTA tends to take out these cars out for a ride for special events, like sports events, guided tours, or during the holidays. These vintage carts tend to travels from the Second Ave station to Queens along the F line.
It was amazing to see historical buildings down at City Hall, then see new buildings built recently nearby, just like the Westfield Mall. The Westfield Mall was a very interesting structure. It does catch my eye, but its not one of the best structures I’ve seen. It doesn’t seem to fit in with the other structure around it. Even though I have these feelings about it, I still would of went inside to see what it looked like from the inside. It does grab my attention and raised my curiosity about the structure. Inside, I do like how open and spacious the inside is and the all-white interior and exterior. It was easy to navigate around and with the whole structure being white, it makes everything brighter.
In the Skyscraper Museum, I feel like I knew some facts already about the history of skyscrapers, especially in New York, like how New York is filled with high rise buildings with low-density apartments. I liked how the museum showed different architecture in other countries and how it compared to New York. It gave me an idea about how our architecture compares to other countries and how other countries where able to create their own inventive buildings,but also represent the culture in them at the same time.. I never realized the shape of the building helped some way with the lighting people get, or how it can affect density.
The museum has over 450 historic objects, images, contemporary video, photography, and even interactive digital experiences to help you to dive deeper into the city’s history. “Timescapes: A History of New York City from 1625 – Present” follows the story of New York City’s rise from a small Dutch village to today. It also focuses on how its ever-changing environment. The documentary mostly focuses on the themes of money, density, diversity, and creativity. “New York at Its Core” captures the history that drove New York to become a city it became to be. “New York at Its Core,” tells a story about New York City’s history and its future. Each section are divided into by a time frame and is told through stories from innovation, struggle, immigrants, politicians, and ordinary New Yorkers.
“Timescapes: A History of New York City from 1625 – Present.”
The short documentary we watch was “Timescapes: A History of New York City from 1625 – Present.” This film helped show me how New York was able to grow from being a small settlement to a large urban city. Some issues the city had back then can be compared to issues today, such as housing issues and income disparity. In the 18 century, there was not enough housing for the number of immigrants arriving each year, especially affordable housing for the rising population of poor immigrants coming to start a new life. There was also a large income disparity and many of the upper class didn’t know the true extent of how the lower class was living. Today there are still problems with poverty and the lack of affordable housing. This shows how history tends to repeats itself and how issues can’t easily be resolved.
Diversity and density have made New York what it is today. Immigration from around the world helped New York’s turnaround in the past two decades. In 20 years, New York City population went from 10 million to over 8 million in only 20 years. During the beginning of the 19th century, most of the immigrants came from Europe, but now most of the immigrants come from the Caribbean, Larin America, Asia, and Africa. As they started to come in throughout the years, many neighborhoods began to become center for cultural variety and helping restore the population density of the city. By the end of the century, New York City becomes one of the world’s most diverse cities, with 36% of the population born overseas. Immigration has helped bring diversity into the city and help bring people to cultures outside their own. There are many neighborhoods where people live alongside others outside their own culture. It shows how connected New York is, not only with its architecture but its citizens as well.
During the 1900s, sculptor Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney purchased many American artist’s works who had trouble exhibiting or selling their work. She saw their new original ideas and wanted them a chance to display their artwork. She established the Whitney Studio in Greenwich Village, where she presented many exhibitions by different American artists whose work would have never been seen or had been disregarded by the traditional institutions. By 1929 she had a collection of more than five hundred pieces. She eventually became the leading patron of American art from 1907 until her death in 1942. She eventually founded her own institution in 1930 called The Whitney Museum of American Art, which only featured art and artist of this country. The museum opened in 1931 on West Eighth Street near Fifth Avenue.
The Highline
In 1934, The High Line opened as part of a massive infrastructure project called the West Side Improvement. The train carried meat, produce, and factory goods to the upper stories of factories and warehouses. The train was 30 feet above the ground and helped removed the train from the streets of Manhattan. Train use began to decrease in the 1950s due to the rise of interstate trucking. This lead to the last train ran through the Highline in 1980. In 1999, Friends of the High Line is founded by two neighborhood residents, Joshua David, and Robert Hammond. Friends of the High Line was created to prevent the structure to be demolished and to raise private funding to help complete the High Line’s renovation. The program also helps oversee the maintenance, operations, and create public programming for the park. The High Line encourages community engagement with the park by hosting more than 450 public programs and activities, each year aimed at supporting the diverse communities that surround the High Line. In 2014, The full High Line opens to the public stretching from Gansevoort Street in the Meatpacking District to West 34th Street, between 10th and 11th Avenues. The park design is a collaboration between James Corner Field Operations, Diller Scofidio and Renfro, and planting designer Piet Oudolf. The park has over 350 types of perennials, grasses, shrubs, vines, and trees and unique seating design, in which the benches look like they are peeling out of the ground. The old railroad tracks can still be seen till this day.
The High Line was somewhere I’ve always wanted to go, but never really fully committed to it. So visiting the High Line today was gratifying for me. I really enjoyed how well built it was for something being soo old and I also liked how all of the designs in the High Line flowed together. It was amazing to see all of the new structures built near the High Line and all of the colorful artwork. While walking throughout the High Line, it was like the structure was telling a story. It was amazing to see how a newly built structure can have soo much history in it. Starting off with the railroad that was once there that is now covered with plants. Also the old decaying buildings above the High Line where meat companies will deliver their meats. Overall the whole experience was enjoyable and I’m glad I’ve finally visited one of the places I always wanted to go to.
The Vessel
The Vessel was designed by British architect Thomas Heatherwick and cost an estimated $200 million to build. When Thomas Heatherwick and Heatherwick Studios were announced to create a new piece in NYC, they kept the project a secret. The bones of the Vessel was constructed in Italy so no one could see what the design would look like. Slowly parts were shipped into NYC to be built until it was finished. The Vessel is an interactive spiral staircase that offers remarkable views of the city, the river, and the newly renovated Hudson Yards. The bottom is 50 feet in diameter and it widens to 150 feet at its 6-story peak. It includes 154 interlaced staircases of bronzed-steel and concrete, 80 landings, and 2,500 steps. A limit of 1000 people is allowed at a time. The Vessel will serve as a place to walk up and down or meet with friends and family while exploring the city.
The exterior design reminded me of a honeycomb and also a pine cone at the same time. I think I’m the only one who sees it that way. I do really like the reflective rose gold lining all around the structure. For the interior, it seems confusing once I walked in, but I think it was mostly because of all of the people standing in the center, playing with some interactive blue lighting. Once I looked around I went straight to the staircase and started to go up the steps. Going up the steps was very tiring and it seems like I was going in circles. Once I got to the top, I looked over the railing and looked down at the bottom. The interior looking down was astonishing, the bottom was shaped like a star.
Deyan Sudjic’s discussion helped me understand the meaning of architecture in modern society. I always assumed some building were only built for aesthetic purposes or to provide housing. After reading Deyan Sudjic’s discussion, he made me realize a building without an idea is just an empty vessel. Every building holds a specific meaning that can connect to cultural influences, historical influence, religious influence, or to provoke people’s emotions. Sudjic uses a lot of examples of how architecture has been used in political, military, and religious purposes. World leaders have used architecture to create a cultural mark on their surroundings and used as political propaganda to show power. This shows how architecture is seen as a competition around the world. Tiananmen Square is an example of structure built for power. The book states, “It was both the physical embodiment and a metaphorical representation of a new political order, a theatrical setting for the regime to celebrate its triumphs and to threaten its enemies with its parades of tanks and missiles.” This buildings was to show the full power and control China leader had on its people. It was meant for people to feel small and weak compared to it making it less likely for people to want to take possession of it. China didn’t want a democratic option.
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