Should the cabin on the left be the context for the new residential building on the right? Whitefish, Montana, by Poon Design (photo by Anthony Poon)
Context is discussed often in architecture. A project’s surroundings—whether a fabric of Cape Cod homes, a conglomerate of steel and glass high-rises, or the industrial vibe of a warehouse district—are a critical item on the design agenda. Should the architect mimic this context, use it as a point of departure, or ignore it and stand in protest?
The Roman temple, Maison Carree, in the foreground, with the new museum, Carre d’Art, in the background (photo from fosterandpartners.com)
The default position is to sympathetically match the context. Like an addition to a house, the owner typically chooses for the addition to be seamless with the original. But for some architects, this approach would be deemed boring. Architects don’t want to copy; they want to be original—whether through a clever reinterpretation of the context or disregarding it altogether.
Sometimes, the context surrounding a project is thought of literally and simplistically. If the environs comprise Spanish Colonial Revival-style structures, then the incoming project should also be Spanish Colonial Revival applying arches, columns, thick stucco walls and clay tile roofs. This would be argued as being responsibly contextual. In fact, many communities invoke specific requirements for the well-intentioned but overly general, “neighborhood compatibility, harmony, and consistency.”
But context is much more than visual appeal, such as architectural style, roof shape and paint colors. Context also includes how scale, proportions, expression, gestalt, and such abstract and powerful ideas that comprise a design.
Street view of Carre d’Art (photo by Mary Ann Sullivan)
When British architect, Norman Foster, completed the 1993 Carre d’Art, the city of Nimes, France, was not just disappointed but up in arms. Foster’s museum design used glass, concrete and steel, and did so in the most contemporary of ways. The apparent problem was one of context, which included the adjacent Maison Carree, a carefully preserved Roman temple from the 1st century AD. Of Foster’s glassy boxy museum, answers were demanded.
Why doesn’t this modern building match the historical temple and the traditional surrounding buildings?
Where are the Corinthian-style fluted columns?
Why is this project not contextual?
Axonometric design drawing of Carre d’Art (from fosterandpartners.com)
The general public failed to understand the abstract nature of context. Because the context included Neoclassical columns, it was expected that the museum would too. Because the context employed a traditional stone exterior, it was expected that the museum would too. And so on.
Model of Carre d’Art (from fosterandpartners.com)
But this architect had a different approach. He suggested that the city of Nimes was known for its quality of natural light, a graceful luminosity. Foster claimed that this light was the context, not the old buildings. The new elegant glass museum captured this light and embraced it, and in so doing, the design was indeed contextual.
Interior of Carre d’Art (photo by Michael Dant on Flickr)
#172: A DAY AND A HALF IN NEW YORK CITY
July 7, 2023
Lobby of 130 William Street (photo by Anthony Poon)
Having wrapped up client meetings in New York City, I had some time to myself. With nothing on the agenda, no one to meet, not much in particular to do, I put on walking shoes to wander this island of Manhattan (here and here). In a day and a half, I visited 20 new architectural works, walking 44,631 steps. Doing the math, that is nearly 20 miles.
THURSDAY
Midtown
Royalton Hotel lobby, 44 West 44th Street (photo by Anthony Poon)
11:30 a.m.: I launched from my Times Square hotel, Philippe Starck’s acclaimed Royalton hotel. In the 1980s, Starck renovated this 1898 hotel, his first hotel re-envisioning. This stylish, irreverent renovation propelled Starck onto the global stage of design. Today, some of the ideas have become questionable, e.g., no mirror directly over the bathroom sink?
Left: Steinway Tower, 111 West 57th Street; right: Central Park Tower, 225 West 57th Street (photos by Anthony Poon)
11:52 a.m..: The Steinway Tower displayed optimism and technological/construction advancement, earning the title, the “World’s Skinniest Skyscraper,” designed by SHoP Architects.
12:12 p.m.: Within the famed “Billionaire’s Row” and its collection of “Supertalls,” the Central Park Tower cantilevered (somewhat awkwardly) building masses to grab views of Central Park. Architect AS+GG offered the tallest residential tower in the world, also the 15th tallest building in the world.
American Kennel Club Museum of the Dog, 101 Park Avenue (photo by Anthony Poon)
12:25 p.m.: How could I not stop into this random find, the Museum of the Dog? I toured an extensive collection of dog-related art, from paintings of presidents’ dogs to porcelain dog statuettes, from an exhibit on the history of the leash to the comprehensive library of books on dogs.
550 Madison Avenue (photo by Anthony Poon)
2:02 p.m.: Formerly the AT&T Building completed in 1984, Philip Johnson’s design with its infamous Chippendale crown received both Post-Modernist acclaim and the worst of ridicule. Last year, Norwegian Snohetta offered this new public garden, a wonderful oasis tucked into dense urbanity.
KAWS, 280 Park Avenue (photo by Anthony Poon)
2:29 p.m.: Artist Brian Donnelly, also known as the popular KAWS, blurs fine art and corporate art. Inside this generic corporate lobby, Donnelly installed a work of surrealism and wackiness.
MoMA, 11 West 53rd Street (photo by Anthony Poon)
4:31 p.m.: Yoshio Taniguchi’s 2004 redesign of MoMA mined the complexity of many levels, galleries, security points, and city facades to provide a coherently, exquisitely tailored museum.
Hudson Theatre, 141 West 44th Street (photos by Anthony Poon)
7:09 p.m.: “When in Rome…” as the saying goes. I visited Times Square’s Hudson Theatre to watch the Tony-nominated performance of Jessica Chastain in Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House. Was the outrage back in 1879 really about a wife merely forging a husband’s signature? Seriously?
FRIDAY
Midtown
Hearst Tower, West 57th Street (photo by Anthony Poon)
Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation, 415 Columbus Avenue (photo by Anthony Poon)
9:53 a.m.: Certainly to be the next New York architectural icon and tourist mecca, I arrived at the Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation just days before its grand opening. Jeanne Gang authored an oddly beautiful and Grotesque structure inspired by the geologic flow of wind and water—expressed by spray-on structural concrete, akin to that of a swimming pool.
Chelsea
Old Tree, Highline (photo by Anthony Poon)
12:02 p.m.: Plenty has been written about the successes (and some failures) of the Highline. But artist Pamela Rosenkranz’s Old Tree caught my eye, a fuchsia-red sculpture standing within the grays and grit of its city backdrop. She questioned what is artificial vs. natural.
The Vessel, 20 Hudson Yards (photo by Anthony Poon)
2:14 p.m.: Created by Heatherwick Studio, the Vessel heroically rose 16 stories with 150 interconnecting staircases and 80 landings. But after three suicides from the top in one year, the Vessel closed. Today, only the ground level was available to visitors—ending the once-promised Eiffel Tower of Manhattan.
The Shed, 545 West 30th Street (photo by Anthony Poon)
2:36 p.m.: Mere steps from the Vessel sits the kinetic Shed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro. It is rare for architecture to move, yet the retractable shell of steel and fluorine-based plastic opens and closes on eight massive wheels 6 feet in diameter, transforming an outdoor space into a theatrical performance space, event hall, or exhibition space.
Little Island, Pier 55 (photo by Anthony Poon)
3:09 p.m.: A quirky visionary project, entitled Little Island, sits on 132 concrete structures called “tulip pots.” Heatherwick Studio, the same architect for The Vessel, created a 2.5-acre artificial island of rich topography and luxurious greenery, accented by a 687-seat amphitheater.
Lower Manhattan
left: “Jenga Tower”; right: “Bean,” 56 Leonard Street (photos by Anthony Poon)
3:31 p.m.: At the street level of the aptly titled “Jenga Tower,” sculptor Anish Kapoor brought an iteration of his famous “bean” from Chicago. Whereas that city was often called “The Second City” to Manhattan, it is here that Manhattan is second place getting a self-derivative art piece.
Perelman Performing Arts Center, 251 Fulton Street (photo by Anthony Poon)
4:35 p.m.: Architect REX’s Perelman Performing Arts Center will, when completed, serve as a hopeful beacon, transforming day to night, from a mute white cube to a glowing marble lantern. The design will complement the World Trade Center, its 9/11 Memorial, and the infamous Oculus, the most excessive subway station.
St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church & National Shrine, 130 Liberty Street (photo by Anthony Poon)
5:38 p.m.: Speaking of Santiago Calatrava’s Oculus, this architect/engineer brought a second landmark to the area, the St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church & National Shrine. Replacing the original 19th century church destroyed on 9/11, the new Byzantine-inspired building glowed, like the Perelman Center, as a lantern of renewal—through the use of thin slabs of translucent Pentelic marble—the same kind of stone used at the Parthenon in Athens.
Courtyard of 130 William Street (photo by Anthony Poon)
6:32 p.m.: Sir David Adjaye’s work is reductive, raw, deceptively simple. This 66-floor luxury condo tower explored arches and arches . . . and even more arches. The darkly-tinted, heavily-textured, hand-cast concrete panels expressed both an enigmatic mystery and somber toughness.
Temple Court, Beekman Hotel, 5 Beekman Street (photo by Anthony Poon)
7:00 p.m.: I concluded my NYC tour with a sumptuous meal at Tom Coliccho’s Temple Court restaurant set within the historic 1883 Beekman Hotel. The 2016 renovation of the Romanesque Revival structure, one of the city’s first skyscrapers, restored the splendor of its nine-story atrium.
A view out of my hotel window, the richness of the rarely seen back-of-house, city fabric (photo by Anthony Poon)
(I thank John Fontillas, Principal of H3, for his insights into generating this list to play architectural tourist.)
