New York green spaces seen from a new vista.

By Aric Chen
July 2001





Above: Designs for semipublic gardens at the French Embassy (left) and Studio Museum (right) in Manhattan tempt passersby with miragelike visions of green.
The tenor of an era is expressed in its urban design. The liberal 1960s, for example, gave rise to New York's vest-pocket parks--get-it-where-you-can patches of public land carved out between tall buildings and busy streets. Today, however, two plots of land under development in Manhattan reflect the moderated public-private tendencies of the present. Street-level garden designs for the Studio Museum in Harlem (Rogers Marvel Architects) and a French government agency (Field Operations/Stan Allen + James Corner) are expressing a different view of green space, providing evidence that the oasis may be giving way to the mirage.

THE METROPOLIS OBSERVED:
Nigeria's design for democracy; bringing the Rural Studio to Manhattan; farewell Detritus Institute; don't fence Droog in; L.A. needs parks-- Portland doesn't; remembering Sarah Tomerlin Lee; disposable cell phones; the Wexner Center deconstructs; private parks in public places.
On 125th Street--a bustling thoroughfare of fast-food chains, storefront churches, and discount apparel centers--the Studio Museum is undergoing a renovation that will, among other things, provide it with a new sculpture garden and ground-floor facade. Bands of translucent channel glass will ripple across the building, ending in a clear-glass pavilion that will stretch across a narrow lot tucked between the museum and its neighbor. Set back just a few feet from the street, this atrium will separate the sidewalk from the sculpture garden, making the latter accessible only through the main building.

Offsite:
Tour the new pocket park of the Studio Museum at Rogers Marvel Architects' site at www.rogersmarvel.com or view the museum's web site at www.studiomuseuminharlem.org.
The project's use of glass evokes the early-twentieth-century idealism of German expressionists such as Bruno Taut, who infused the material with metaphors of purity, clarity, and social rejuvenation. "It's a wonderful statement of transparency and invitation," says Kinshasha Holman Conwill, the museum's former director, who oversaw the design process. "We wanted to break down the notion of the museum as a fortress."

Indeed the project represents the new Harlem: a community whose ongoing revitalization is challenging its reputation for crime and poverty. The design defies those who would question both the extensive use of glass and the museum's decision to forgo the security gates that otherwise line 125th Street after dark. But by separating the cloistered garden from a clamorous street, the glass barrier also allows the museum to more fully claim the site, and hence a larger presence in the neighborhood. The glass may also intensify the garden's allure by withholding its promise of calm from passersby. The project is a symbol of aspiration not only for the neighborhood, but for the weary pedestrian. "We want the garden to be a point of visual relief when you walk by," architect Jonathan Marvel says.

Not far away, but worlds apart, the French Embassy's office of cultural services is constructing an unconventional garden between the Gilded Age mansion that houses it and another one next door. Just off Fifth Avenue, only a few feet from Central Park, the narrow site is in an area dense with cultural institutions and their enthusiasts. It's a neighborhood for strolling, where most will only experience the garden as passersby.

If all goes as planned, a "media grove" of art and sound installations will front Fifth Avenue, behind which an aluminum-grate platform will occasionally host concerts and receptions. Fabric-covered lanterns will grace a more contemplative space in back, and at night the grated platform--gently sloped to heighten its visibility from the street--will be lit dramatically from below to illuminate the space and the Beaux-Arts facades that edge it. "People will be able to see the garden from the street, to discover something new among the surrounding landmark buildings," explains Antoine Vigne, the French agency's director of visual arts. "But there will be no public access."

"It's a point of concern for us because we're committed to public space," architect Stan Allen says. But he also points out that Central Park fulfills the area's need for greenery as well as public space. As with the Studio Museum garden, a public gesture is being made, but it exists tenuously between an actual public space and an apparition. In fact, these gardens may be showing us that passing visions can be as important to the urban matrix as sites of congregation.


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