Culture,Urbanism

Landscape of the City

THURSDAY , May 5, 2011 | BY  

It is springtime in New York and we all need to appreciate what this transitional period means (hint: the rebirth of nature) by spending a little more time outdoors. As temperatures became more forgiving and the skies less ominous, I followed my own advice and wandered over to Madison Square Park to enjoy a glimpse of nature. There, a temporary installation “Kota Ezawa: City of Nature,” afforded  a supplemental and unexpected look at the natural world in addition to all the flowers and greenery.

As I entered the park’s southeast corner and headed towards the always buzzing Shake Shack, I heard the strange hum of uncannily familiar music only to discover ‘planted’ among spring’s tulips were several flat screen monitors playing a six-minute continuous loop of video collages by multi-media artist and illustrator Kota Ezawa.

From the park’s manicured setting, I contemplated vivid, exuberant scenes of pointedly ‘wild’ nature (sharks, cascades, mountains, and prairies) through the bias of the artist. The piece strings together re-worked popular culture film clips, themed around nature, leading one to ponder the larger questions of nature as a construct of culture.

Kota Ezawa comments about his work, “City of Nature is an alternative to the mainstream nature film in that it weaves together 70 nature scenes from 20 different pop culture films through animation. The nature scenes, stemming from films as diverse as Late Spring by Yasujirō Ozu and Rambo: First Blood, are stitched together into an abstract narrative where one natural element leads to the next. The entire film collage is hand redrawn and transformed into an animated film.[1]

a. Kota Ezawa, video stills from City of Nature, 2011. Courtesy of the artist and Madison Square Park Conservancy.

The experience was well-worth the detour as this culture/nature juxtaposition reverberates at many scales. Consider, for instance, the history of the park’s land itself. Although today Madison Square Park offers a planted haven from its built and paved surroundings – the reason for which I felt compelled to go there to begin with – it is remarkably alien to the original wilderness of the Island of Manhattan. To get a sense of the original ‘natural’ conditions of our habitat, navigate the fascinating Manahatta Project (http://welikia.org/explore/mannahatta-map/.) Otherwise, to give you a sense of the Island’s transformations, here are some striking representations (drawn from the Welikia Project.)

British Headquarters Map, circa 1782

b. The British Headquarters Map, circa 1782, is the best record of Mannahatta's early topography and ecology. The National Archives of the UK, ref. MR1/463. (http://welikia.org/about/how-it-all-began/)

Current-Day Satellite Photograph of Manhattan

c. Current-Day Satellite Photograph of Manhattan. Photomontage by author from Google Maps Imagery ©2011 Google © 2011 DigitalGlobe, Bluesky, Sanborn USDA Farm Service Agency, GeoEye

Madison Square Park

d. Current Day Bird’s Eye view of Madison Square Park. Pictometry Bird’s Eye © 2010 Pictometry International Corp © AND © 2010 NAVTEQ © 2011 Microsoft Corporation. Image courtesy of USGS.

In fact, as the artist himself suggests, his work invites a careful consideration of our outlook onto our surroundings:

“Surrounded by classic Manhattan buildings, Madison Square Park itself can be experienced as a piece of architecture, and as such, encourages us to view Manhattan as landscape. The fusion of nature and construction is a prevalent theme in City of Nature as throughout the city of Manhattan—natural film landscapes are re-constructed over and over again through the process of animation, just as nature in real form is re-constructed time and time again as Manhattan continues to evolve. In this way, the film mirrors Madison Square Park, attempting to draw park-goers into a conversation about nature both within the film and throughout the park itself.”[2]

It seems like too good an invitation to pass up. Let’s celebrate Spring, the rebirth of nature, and the City we live in by appreciating its complexities through Ezawa’s fascinating art installation. But go now, for like Spring, it will be gone soon; the installation closes on Sunday, May 15.

Kota Ezawa: City of Nature. Madison Square Park. Daily 9am -11pm. Madison Square Park Conservancy, Art Program (Mad. Sq. Art).

http://www.artdaily.org/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=46126

http://www.madisonsquarepark.org/things-to-do/calendar/kota-ezawas-city-of-nature-now-playing-in-the-park

[1] Madison Square Park Conservancy’s Mad. Sq. Art Premieres Commissioned Film, http://www.artdaily.org/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=46126 (04/19/2011)

[2] Kota Ezawa. Madison Square Park Conservancy’s Mad. Sq. Art Premieres Commissioned Film, http://www.artdaily.org/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=46126 (04/19/2011)

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Culture,Sustainability

Mr. Stein’s Green

THURSDAY , January 13, 2011 | BY  

No, not Ben Stein’s money, Carl Stein’s Greening Modernism: Preservation, Sustainability and the Modern Movement. The green guru (he’s been working with sustainability issues for over three decades) recapped his recently released book about technology, adaptive reuse, and energy conservation (both in construction and usage) to a full house at the Center for Architecture. His lecture was the first in a new series of monthly Book Talk programs sponsored by the AIANY Chapter’s Oculus Magazine. Stein argues that for forty-plus years we’ve known that energy consumption in buildings will be an increasingly poignant issue, environmentally and architecturally, but we have failed to do much about it.

Stein at the Center for Architecture

Carl Stein recapping the tenets of his new book "Greening Modernism"

The talk ultimately evolved into an argument against criticism by a “blogger from Rhode Island” who Stein repeatedly referenced but never identified as David Brussat, architecture critic at the Providence Journal. Brussat in his post “Column: Building, Climate and Original Green” shows a penchant for tradition over modernism, and in an earlier post called Stein “bootlicker to the pillars of the architectural establishment.” Taking the criticism seriously, but in good humor, Stein countered, “I find the image of a pillar with a pair of boots funny.” Basing his presentation as a counter to each of Brussat’s conservative charges, Stein declared that modernism cannot be conflated with style, that style does not oppose sustainability, and that technology does not obviate tradition.

Stein has spent the better part of his career researching and advancing sustainable practices and has a long list of credentials. Besides practicing architecture for three decades, he chaired the National AIA Energy Professional Development Task Force, was a consultant for the U.S. Supreme Court and the U.S. Department of Energy. Consequently, I was surprised that his book talk was not more informative or heavy hitting with the facts, rather than telling the audience to usher in a post-petroleum society by renovating the existing stock of modernist buildings. While the book may address such tactics and statistics, the 25-minute book talk did not.

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Culture

Attention to Details

TUESDAY , December 21, 2010 | BY  

Alan Chimacoff has found the poetic in the mundane. In his exhibition abstract.hyphen.realities at the FXFOWLE gallery, Chimacoff aims his camera at bits of the urban environment to “emphasize abstraction and ambiguity…and challenge their reality.” What emerges are two alternating series—one “portraits” of double yellow traffic lines and the other of architectural details—that capture nuanced vignettes of the urban environment that surrounds any city-dweller.

Chimacoff’s photo “Y25″

In the Y series, traffic lines become characters in the apparent simplicity of the objective painted traffic line. They misalign in Y22, where the painter changed a roller or adjusted some mechanism, or they abruptly stop in Y37—a splash of paint at the end like a small exclamation. The pure geometry of the traffic line asserts itself in Y27 as it crosses different types of pavement undisturbed; however, that autonomy is completely undermined when it intersects utilities, like the manhole cover in Y35 that exerts its own logic and function as it has been rotated 90 degrees since the line was painted over it. Other traffic lines are over-painted masses or faded blotches as recurring seasons have taken their toll.

It’s no surprise that architectural details figure prominently in the other series as Chimacoff practices architecture in Princeton, NJ. Many of the black and white photos document constructions by the usual suspects Frank Gehry, Richard Serra, Jean Nouvel, and Daniel Burnham. Form, details, and the subtle interaction of light and material all fall subject to Chimacoff’s wandering eye. However, one photograph obviously has been manipulated in Sliced, a fragmentation of the late Raimund Abraham’s Austrian Cultural Forum’s façade. This led me to re-examine the other photos to see if I had missed some fast trick that Chimacoff was trying to pull.

Two other photos complement the exhibition. City Museum combines a few photographs in the gallery into a collage of buildings. While Quadryptich composes four vignettes of wall details and their oblique shadows into a single print.

abstract.hyphen.realities runs through Friday January 7 and is open Monday-Friday, 9:00  am to 5:30 pm. Call ahead to double check hours during the holidays.

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Culture,Design

Yes We Can!

TUESDAY , November 16, 2010 | BY  

In its 18th year, Canstruction NYC kicked off last Wednesday night at the World Financial Center. Competition was tough this year as 24 teams participated. We were happy to see some longtime competitors return to the stacking floor.

"Building Blocks Against Hunger" the FXFOWLE/WSP Flack + Kurtz entry for Canstruction 2010

Once again FXFOWLE and WSP Flack + Kurtz teamed on this year’s effort, but we took a completely different approach than last year’s “Canny Island.” Going for something a little more primordial we considered something that inspires many architects and engineers at a young age. Something that we can still appreciate as that which ignited an interest in designing and buildings—a toy modular building block with a friction locking interface that begins a lifetime of construction! Oh, those sleek finishes and those brilliant colors. That smooth resistance and slight snap as the pieces lock together. We assembled 7644 cans to canstruct eleven “Building Blocks Against Hunger.”

While over 100,000 cans were donated in in total from this year’s sculptures, a winning move in stocking City Harvest’s pantry,  the FXFOWLE/WSP Flack + Kurtz team unfortunately did not win any prizes. However, Bruce Fowle was honored with a trophy acknowledging FXFOWLE’s participation in the past 15 years of Canstruction. This year’s jurors’ favorite went to Thornton Tomasetti’s “BabushCan,” an interpretation of matroshka nesting dolls.

FXFOWLE Founding Principal Bruce Fowle with his award for 15 years participation in Canstruction

Founded in 1992 by Cheri C. Melillo, Canstruction events occur in over a hundred cities across the US, as well as internationally. The Canstructions will be on view at the World Financial Center daily from 10am–7pm until 5pm Monday November 22. Come take a look and bring a can or two to donate to City Harvest.

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Design,Sustainability,Urbanism

Trick or Treat Expo, Part 2

FRIDAY , November 12, 2010 | BY  

While the Shanghai Expo successfully showcased various countries and cultures, through carefully edited highlights, I doubt that many visitors departed appreciating how we could actually build healthier, more sustainable cities. Unfortunately the smaller pavilions extolling the virtues of green living, and the Expo’s tag-line “Better City, Better Life,” seemed comparatively under-attended. Rather than creating queues their entries seemed to repel visitors. Sprinkled amongst the international and corporate pavilions’ schizophrenic range of styles, the smaller educational depots looked like service buildings.

The big question remains. What will become of this newly reformed site as it becomes a new commercial and business district? Will it contribute to a “Better City?” The site, on facing banks of the Huangpu River, optimally sits at the crossroads of two subway lines downriver from the Bund. The housing (for 60,000 citizens) that once stood there has been razed. Infrastructure has been put in place. Maybe the longest lasting impact of the Expo will be the subway lines and airport that shuttled tourists (5.8 percent of visitors) to the Expo and local destinations. But will it live up to the legacy of the “green” expo?

The China Pavilion

The China Pavilon is slated to become a museum of Chinese history and culture. Photo by Gao Tian

Five of the larger buildings, such as the iconic China Pavilion, will remain. On a smaller level, contrary to initial reports that all the pavilions would be demolished, some of the pavilions are being auctioned. The Taiwan pavilion, for example, will continue its life in Hsinchu, Taiwan as an innovation and exposition center. Others may go to Chinese provinces that have ties with respective countries, although this has not been confirmed.

The Expo grounds provide a setting to interject a sustainable approach into a city that has been running full steam ahead for the past few years, and the government is steadily applying pressure to developers to utilize environmental measures in new buildings. Meanwhile, studios at nearby Tongji University’s College of Architecture and Urban Planning have been studying possibilities for the site, but only theoretically.

Expo site model at Tongji University

Students at Tongji University are studying possible futures for the Expo site.

Hopefully one of those rare moments will emerge when vision, commerce, and policy all align. As things go in China, whatever becomes of the site, we’re sure to see the results in a few years.

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Culture,Sustainability,Urbanism

Trick or Treat Expo, Part 1

TUESDAY , November 9, 2010 | BY  

 

By James Way

Shanghai’s Expo 2010, which closed on Halloween, definitely had some architectural treats. We’ve all been inundated with Heatherwick’s U.K. pavilion, that luminescent porcupine. Really quite beautiful but the trick was to actually get into it. The queue kept me well beyond arms length…by about, oh, three hours! This recurring problem deterred me from many of the pavilions. The more opulent, the longer the line.

The U.K. Pavilion by Heatherwick Studio

The U.K. Pavilion by Heatherwick Studio. Photo by Gao Tian

Surprisingly, after only a 35 minute wait I entered the Danish Pavilion, which, in one word, rocked—formally (the product of Bjarke Ingels Group, Arup, and artist Jeppe Hein) and content-wise (contributions from  designers 2+1 Ideas Agency, director Martin de Thurah, and photographer Peter Funch). 

The Danish Pavilion by collaborators BIG, Arup, and 2+1 Ideas.

By October 30 the number of visitors matched the country’s population (5.55 million)—attracted by either the Little Mermaid sculpture or the chance to ride a bicycle down the pavilion’s circling ramp, which unfortunately closed after dark. Many less-populated countries boast similar claims as the Expo’s final attendance tally exceeded 73 million. The day I attended only a mere 415,300 people showed up, slightly more than the population of Oakland, CA. Many of these were repeat visitors though; one person I talked to had gone four times and had seen only a few of the pavilions.

The Little Mermaid scuplture and a visitor preparing to bicycle down the pavilion.

The Little Mermaid Sculpture on its first excursion from the harbour of Copenhagen (l). A visitor prepares to ride a bicycle down the pavilion's intertwining form (r).

On Saturday October 16, however, over one million people crowded the Expo, setting a daily record and surpassing attendance records established forty years ago at Osaka’s Expo. This number surpasses the populations of many of the U.S.’s larger mid-sized cities: Detroit, San Francisco (proper), Austin, and Indianapolis, to name a few. I can imagine the lines and waiting. I heard that people crowded the entrance gates to get into the proper lines before even entering the Expo grounds. Fortunately things didn’t disintegrate into Altamont proportion chaos.

But this excessive crowding is part of our future. A recent issue of Foreign Policy confirms that “half the world’s population is now urban” and continuing to congregate in urban centers, like Shanghai’s 19,213,200 people have. Richard Dobbs, in his article “Megacities,” points out that “China will need 40 billion square meters of combined residential and commercial floor space over the next 20 years — equivalent to adding one New York every two years.” While construction thrives in Shanghai (more construction cranes than I could keep track of), I wonder if the Expo’s theme “Better City, Better Life” will have any impact. This indeed will be the trick.

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Culture,Sustainability

Death by Plastic

FRIDAY , October 22, 2010 | BY  

by Jessica Pleasants

Green October, a month-long campaign to increase awareness of waste among FXFOWLE staff, kicked–off early this month with a special lecture by Dr. Caleb McClennen, Director of Marine Conservation at the Wildlife Conservation Society.

Dr. McClennen shed light on the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch,” a high concentration of debris, estimated to be twice the size of Texas, floating at the center of the North Pacific Ocean. The term “patch” is misleading, since the debris consists mostly of small pieces of plastic not readily visible by the human eye or satellite technology. However, Dr. McClennen has seen the occasional floating refrigerator while at sea. Small bits of partially degraded plastics, discarded fishing line, and organic material congregate in convergence zones away from the coastline, pushed together by the ocean’s fluid dynamics.

Dr. Caleb McClennen illustrates how plastics converge in the mid-Pacific ocean.

Although the Marpol 73/78 prohibits international marine dumping from ships, garbage continues to find its way into oceans, killing marine life that either ingest the plastics or become entangled in it. Several organizations sponsor clean-up efforts, but many initiatives remain uncoordinated and are mostly symbolic. That’s why prevention of plastic waste is the first step in protecting our oceans.

An albatross chick confused plastic garbage for food. Photo by Chris Jordan.

The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) works to safeguard seascapes that are the home of ocean giants, coral reefs, and great colonies of seabirds. The WCS’s efforts focus on land-based pollution and runoff, as well as on maintaining coastal livelihoods, the effects of overfishing, and climate change on coral reefs. An interdisciplinary conservationist, Dr. McClennen oversees the WCS’s marine conservation efforts in 13 focus areas worldwide, from Belize to Indonesia.

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Culture,Design

Words with the Artist: Daniel Wiener, Part 2

TUESDAY , September 7, 2010 | BY  

by Jessica Pleasants

Last week, I talked to Daniel about his inspiration and process. This week we continue talking about his materials, techniques and color.

Jessica Pleasants: A 36”x36” amorphous table top is in the exhibit.  Are there other functional uses for the sculpture?
Daniel Wiener: The table originated from my working process. I kneaded a batch of Apoxie-Sculpt, flattened it out, and a pattern emerged. Voila! It became clear to me that this could be a tabletop. Since then I have made vessels, stools, tables and other useful objects. I hope soon to make a throne. While these objects are useful, they share the same sense of impracticality and irrationality as the sculpture. They confuse categories and mess with the notion of utility. For example, the tabletops are horizontal paintings and the wall reliefs comprise both painting and sculpture. They do function, though. Everyday my family uses one of my coffee tables in our living room. 

Wiener Table

"Flare and Falter", 45 x 50 x 13.5 inches, Apoxie-Sculpt

 JP: Have you created other functional sculptures for other clients/patrons?
DW: Not yet, but I long to collaborate with an architect or designer to create built-ins, a counter, a mantle, or a cabinet. If a client were daring enough I would love to install a site-specific hybrid of a countertop that morphs into a wall relief, a telephone stand mutating into a sculpture, a couch that continues up the wall as a painting. 

JP: What is apoxie-sculpt, the material you use for your sculptures?
DW: Apoxie-Sculpt is a two-part material that one can model like clay. Once mixed, it’s “live” for three to four hours then leather-hard awhile longer. It dries very hard and can be worked like wood or stone—carved, sawed, sanded. All the sculptures, tables, and wall pieces were made over many sessions working with a quail’s egg amount of Apoxie-Sculpt to watermelon-sized quantities.

JP: Is there any concern about toxicity?
DW: According the manufacturer and OSHA, there is very little chance of toxicity. I take normal work-a-day precautions, such as wearing a mask when I am sanding. There is absolutely no danger once Apoxie-Sculpt has hardened.

JP: What other materials do you use?
DW: An artist-in-residence at Pilchuck Glass School several years ago, I produced, with the help of several excellent glass blowers, many sculptural components that I occasionally included in my sculptures. In the past, I used wire, sewn and hand-dyed muslin, plaster, and Sculpey. On rare occasions these materials make their way back into a sculpture.

JP: The works are abstract, which lends a lot to the color. How do you think about color?
DW: While black and white provides an easy hierarchical system—good and bad, life and death, empty and full—color never settles comfortably into a rational system. The symbolic explanations of color are unconvincing whether written by Kandinsky, early Renaissance artists, or post-modernist critics. Color is always contextual and never fixed. If you haven’t figured it out yet, I am drawn to the unfixed and the ever-changing and thus drawn to the inevitable irrationality of color.

 JP: Paris or Berlin?
DW: I have spent little time in Paris or Berlin. Though I have never been to Barcelona, Catalonian Art Nouveau has influenced me probably more than the art of other European cities.

View a step-by-step process of the making the table: Making the FXFOWLE Table.

Daniel Wiener is a Brooklyn-based artist known primarily for his intense and viscerally arresting sculptures.  His exhibition “Watercolors + Sculpture” is on view at FXFOWLE’s gallery Monday through Friday 9–5 through September 17th.

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Culture

Up Against a Wall

FRIDAY , September 3, 2010 | BY  

 

By James Way

Eight women sit on platform seats hung from the concrete wall. Coated in beeswax, glistening traces mark the surface around them. Their scant translucent lanolin attire hangs loose and limpid. The performers begin by sitting upright on their perches and alternately proceed through languid drooping and frenetic spasms while a soundtrack of cricket-like chirps and electric crackles accompanies. Variations of this reoccur over 30 minutes.

Performers entering a spasmatic period of "Melt"

This scene (and this week’s heat) definitely serves the title of this performance, Melt, which choreographer Noémie Lafrance conceived during her first searing New York summer. Based on unbearable heat melting away physical trappings—clothing and flesh alike—and billed as site-specific, the performance could have gone to greater lengths to make both more central to the event.

Shown in increasingly longer and more populated iterations since its 2003 debut in Brooklyn, the performers here don’t interact with the site at all. Located at the Salt Pile under the Manhattan Bridge near the East River, the wall remained just a vertical surface—an armature and a backdrop. The performers, glued to the wall, ignore the trains rumbling overhead, the water flowing nearby, and the immense pile of salt. Site-specificity became site-adapted. Even by Lafrance’s admission, “the site needed is relatively simple: a wall.” For such a strong and central feature, the wall remains a passive background. The heat meanwhile was indeed emphasized and present.

Performers melting on their perches

That the production commandeered a raw urban and relatively public setting with a few small props was exciting. And, while visually arresting, unfortunately the environment remained untapped.

Melt runs through Sept. 12 at the Salt Pile at Pike Slip and South Street, Manhattan. See sensproduction.org for further information.

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Culture,Design

Words with the Artist: Daniel Wiener, Part 1

THURSDAY , September 2, 2010 | BY  

by Jessica Pleasants

I caught up Daniel Wiener, a Brooklyn-based artist known primarily for his intense and viscerally arresting sculptures, and asked him about his process.  His exhibition Watercolors + Sculpture is on view at FXFOWLE’s gallery through September 17th.

Jessica Pleasants: Can you tell me a little about your inspiration for the apoxie-sculpt pieces?
Daniel Wiener: Imagination is both the source and the subject of my work. While it seems obvious, many artists of the last 60 years have been focusing on other starting points. I’m fascinated by how humans are compelled to imagine. The involuntary impulse to conjure images and stories is both a blessing and a curse. This dual energy drives my work. Each invention in the studio, either accidental or purposeful, leads to another and yet another, combining towards an unexpected outcome.

DW_flowerglasstornhole

"flowerglasstornhole" 15 x 8 x 8 inches, apoxie sculpt, glass

JP: Do you have the same inspiration for the watercolors?
DW: Many of the sources and methods for the watercolors are the same for the sculpture.  However, I started the watercolors when I was in a creative quandary as a way to analyze, explore, and understand my influences. In the watercolors and the preparatory drawings, I riff on Tex Avery, creator of many Warner Brothers cartoons, the roof sculptures and turrets of Antonio Gaudi, and the worn and eroded shapes of Scholar’s Rocks, to name a few. Since my influences are more apparent in the watercolors, they include depictions and illusionistic space, though I’ve composed them abstractly as I did the sculptures. 

DW_redlittleelbows_dtl

Detail of "redlittleelbows", 22 x 33 inches, watercolor, ink, pencil, gouache on paper

JP: How do these inspirations relate or differ in concept and material?
DW: Both media include accidents and improvisations overlaid with more elaborate and self-conscious patterns. The difference in control is starker in the watercolors. After creating the spills, drips, and splashes, I spend hours or days drawing different motifs that dovetail with a particular spill. Because I want to keep plenty of white space in the watercolors, I have one chance to do it right. The more I like a spill the greater the pressure for the addition to suit it. While there is never just one solution, making watercolors feels more like problem-solving. In contrast, making sculpture entails a more flowing conversation between intuitive improvisation and intellectual decision making.

JP: What is the process by which you create the pieces? 
DW: Tinkering.

JP: How did this come about?
DW: I have accepted the fact that I am an intuitive, improvisatory artist—a tinkerer. I try one thing, then another thing, and another until something clicks, and then I keep making one mistake after another until a piece resolves into a satisfying, dense dissonance.

See a slide show of the evolution of Daniel’s sculpture: Algorithm for a Crazy Vase.

Next, I will talk to Daniel about his materials, techniques, and color. Stay tuned…

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