Aleksandar Dekic: MOMA as a New York City Cultural Institution

Museum of Modern Art is a unique institution which celebrates new and inventive art. Even though it is called the Museum of Modern Art, its collection is mostly more than 100 years old which puts it in a way of an older historical institution. The architecture of the building itself is interesting as much as it is its collection. The building is a grouping of series of periods of construction, with the most recent just completed. It also has two rooms with the architectural collection, one is called architecture systems, and the other one is called the architecture of modern art. This is not my first time to visit this place, but I was again surprised by what it can offer to one visitor.

When we enter the building, there was the main hall with its open space and high ceiling which extends in some parts to the 3rd or 4th floor. Annoying sound from the ceiling, which fills the room from time to time, shows us the great acoustics of the place which would be perfect for the concerts. The main steps are designed in a way that visitors can enjoy in the movement of another visitor, which made human movement in the space an inevitable part of the building. The building will be incomplete without human movement. The same thing we saw when we visited the Guggenheim museum. During my visit, one of our colleges takes a picture of me from the 4^th floor while we were on the 2^nd floor watching the live performance happening with people in black clothes moving temporary sculptures on the wheels around, as a part of a performance. We were hypnotized with the performance, eager to find out why there are doing that, and what will happen at the end, not knowing that we have been part of somebody’s bigger picture of that same performance, but just from the different angle.

The special place in this institution is the garden. It represents the museum for itself in 2 ways. First, the dynamic and symmetry of the garden are totally in coherence with the museum building that surrounds it. The pool in the garden, together with the sculptures in it, are symbiotic with the architecture of the building, with the seatback on in, and with the transparent glass façade on the ground floor which makes the garden looks bigger like it extends into the buildings hall. The colors that dominate in the garden are white (Granite white), green and black (sculptures) and are compatible with the building on all three sides. And, probably the most iconic thing that makes this garden unique and, some would say the best in the world, are the buildings that surround this area. It is sort of museum or collection in open, with all this building from different periods, and different architectural styles that have a relation with each other and reflects this garden. Here we can see archeology of buildings like postmodernism buildings (ATT building), or art deco buildings or something that looks like Lever Building or another building that has taken the inspiration from the Seagram Building.

It was an amazing experience today to visit this cultural institution and with the help of Professor Montgomery, to see it with the different sets of eyes. To see this “garden museum” which today modern architects are taking into calculation whenever they plan to build some building that is visible from this location. It produces some sort of awe into me, knowing that this garden stands as an architectural angel guardian for the future preservation of everything that is artistically and architecturally important for the “soul” of this city.

Architecture for the general public is known to be about the upbringing of buildings and residences and the way people circulate or move through a certain space. Yet as a person who goes more in depth with technicality and as you study the focus of architecture more in depth you realize that it’s also about the language an urban project or a specific building has with its surroundings. You come to realize the significance that you want the project to evoke on a person and you also want people to understand the statement that you’re trying to express as an architect or as a group of architects.

Hudson Yards is most definitely one of the newest tourist attractions in New York City. Therefore, it is a very picturesque place but with luxury as a forefront. It’s an urban project that interacts with the High Line creating a larger responsibility in circulation and the proper flow people. As most of us know the High Line is a museum of architecture, a pathway that cuts through neighborhoods and buildings allowing a person to have various experiences. Nonetheless, the High Line achieves all of this with historic significance and smoothness for various blocks; not highly altering the design that a neighborhood already had. Meanwhile Hudson Yards is a project that creates its own world such as the Lincoln Center and Rockefeller Center but I would say in a less successful manner. Every building in Hudson Yards just speaks its own design which is not bad as an individual figure but it’s unsuccessful as a unison besides the entities of glass. Circulation fails to lead you to a main attraction or the tallest buildings as it is done in Rockefeller Center.

Therefore, how does Hudson Yards compare to the urban planning of Battery Park city? I would say that Hudson yards is clearly driven by money and luxury. Meanwhile Battery Park city is driven by the true definition but what architecture stands for which is the interaction of society, the interaction within a neighborhood, the blend and coherence of a new neighborhood with the existing one and the concept of utilizing money for the progression of society rather than the waste and exalt of money.

This short writing is about my visit to Lincoln Center. It focuses on how the lincoln center relate to the city around.

At first a civic center can be interpreted as an eminent land area in a community that represent an image of power, dominance, and civic unity. It usually carries space for conventions, sport events, and theatrical entertainment. The lincoln Center is a preforming art center located in Upper West side Manhattan. It’s a complex of buildings design by multiple architects. The lincoln center plan was highly attacked when they first announced it by Jane Jacobs and other Urban planners. They said that” it’s going to be a sterile island cut off from the real life of the city.” I can agree more, during my visit I saw that the center looks different from it’s surrounding, and it takes a large part of the area. With the main entrance facing broadway and the other sides sort of blocking life around it especially on both Avenues, also it’s kinda impractical to access on foot. Jane Jacob said “no neighborhood or district, no matter how well established, prestigious or well healed and no matter how intensely populated for one purpose, can flout the necessity for spreading people through time of day without frustrating its potential for generating diversity.” clearly the center is not an example of a perfect neighborhood. The design ignores the importance of knowing how things work in the city which is short blocks, and mixed uses buildings where people can gather easily enjoying life in the neighborhood.

Nevertheless, the Lincoln Center success comes from the program his offering the people in the neighborhood around with the opera House, Dance, music etc and also because of the mass of stores, restaurants and new housing they started building around it. The building never function as an Acropolis idea but now really represents the city’s most elegant area.

This short writing is about my visit to Battery Park City It focuses on the comparison between Lincoln Center and Battery Park City urban renewal planning.

New urbanism it a movement started in the late 80’s and early 90’s were they focus on Jane Jacobs observation on how cities function, evolve and fail. she basically revolutionize the world of architects, planners and politicians with her writing. She saw cities as nonsegregated systems that had their own logic and energy which would change over time in relation to how they were used. She proposed that cities should be built as they been built throughout time with streets, open space, parks and short blocks. The blocks should define the street edges nicely, and people should be able to see the street from their buildings. The lincoln center didn’t adopt any of this new urbanism approach instead the idea ignores the importance of knowing how things work in the city. The center looks different from it’s surrounding, and it takes a large part of the area not allowing any connection between itself and the street or the block. Compare to Lincoln Center Battery Park City really embrace Jane Jacobs approach on how a city should be built. So they changed the previous plan created in the late 60’s with a better one showing a connection with the rest of lower Manhattan. The new plan also contains many principles that makes Battery Park City a great urban environment. Some of those principles was not be self contained ; show a connection with Manhattan grid; reproduce what’s great about New york City neighborhoods ect.