Monday, July 12, 2010

Rising Currents: Projects for New York’s Waterfront

MoMA Exhibitions
March 24–October 11, 2010
Architecture and Design Galleries, 3rd floor

During a recent trip to the Museum of Modern Art I stumbled upon a fascinating exhibit that I was surprised to find in a modern art museum. I was impressed to discover that MoMA is embracing the creativity required by urban planners, landscape architects, and environmental scientists to address issues like climate change and potential sea level rise.

The project blurb from MoMA's website:

The architects-in-residence program at the P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center brings together five interdisciplinary teams, including Architecture Research Office , to re-envision the coastlines of New York and New Jersey around New York Harbor and to imagine new ways to occupy the harbor itself with adaptive “soft” infrastructures that are sympathetic to the needs of a sound ecology. These creative solutions are intended to dramatically change our relationship to one of the city’s great open spaces.


It's a really fascinating exhibit and I highly recommend it. I especially enjoyed the artificial oyster reef proposal to clean up the Gowanus Canal and the soft shoreline ideas for Lower Manhattan. Be prepared to do a lot of reading because each proposal display contains a ton of information.


Rising Currents: Projects for New York’s Waterfront

A little proof that science does belong in a modern art museum be beautiful. This beautiful display of pilings,was  made from recycled glass, proposed by
Matthew Baird Architects for the shoreline of Bayonne in the Kill Van Kull. Much more interesting than the standard massive concrete structures that are currently used to stabilize shorelines. Much nicer to look at too.
More information can be found on the exhibition's interactive website here.

Photo Credit: Michelle Verdugo

1 comment:

  1. It seems like an interesting exhibition. I'll check the link for details. Thanks for sharing!

    ReplyDelete

ShareThis