We struggled to get a good vantage point of our subject, which was an old metal gate that bore intricate embroideries of turned steel. Richard wanted us to draw through the spaces between the embroideries, so that in doing so, its latticework would be revealed. This reverse process mimics the way images are captured through the camera lens: On film, images appear the opposite way. Our medium was a square, stubby stick of charcoal rubbed over newsprint. Once blackened, the image of the gate would emerge. This was my first contact with what we refer to as negative space. It would be the start of my acquaintance with space, that side which is less visible than the objects that draw our eyes.
In architecture, it is significant to feel space. By revealing its dimensions, we actually enlarge our fields of vision. People talk about minimalism these days, but minimalism is actually about space as an entity equal to the objects we possess.
Today, as cities become more dense, space tends to lose its meaning. The tendency is to fill every spatial void there is. It’s as if open space is a waste that needs to be occupied. To many, our way of life is full of such tightness, a density we have agreed to live with. This is why I’m writing about two distinct spaces in New York City that will hopefully inspire us in our search for a better quality of life.
Central Park is not only an oasis to a teeming city like New York, but is also a source of water, a planned municipal reservoir that was built in 1853. This open block that stretches 853 acres from 59th Street to 110th Street and is half a mile wide, is arguably one of the best city parks to date.
In 1858, a collaboration between Frederick Olmstead and Calvert Vaux, known as the "Greensward" plan, won over 32 other entries in a competition that was marred by an earlier dispute over two competing bills. The first bill proposed a 150-acre site on the East River, to be known as the Jones Woods, and the other, a larger, central location extending from 59th to 106th streets between 5th and 8th Avenues. The dispute was eventually resolved through a court case, extending the central location with a water reservoir as the site.
Over a century has passed since, and while a few small additions have changed the initial ideas of Olmstead and Vaux, Central Park remains as remarkable as when it was conceived. My visits to New York are never complete without a stroll through Central Park, regardless of the season. Our children are likewise inclined, offering to give up shopping in exchange for a day’s loll.
This year, my appreciation of Central Park grew even more after seeing the new Museum of Modern Art. I detect a parallel connection between these two worthy places, as they assume their roles of providing much-needed relief from "the city that never sleeps."
The creation of Central Park was no easy undertaking. The topography of the site is likened to that of a "bowling alley." It sits on a strip that has a length of about two and half miles, with a width of a mere half mile. At its center is a reservoir, which required four city streets to traverse the park and remain open at night, when the park was closed. In the old days, it was a rugged terrain of swampy lowlands and rocky outcroppings, which was pretty much pervasive at that time. Since it wasn’t suitable for either farming or building, the city was able to acquire it without paying much.
So what is it that transformed the "Greensward Plan" to what it is today? To me, what makes Central Park attractive is the manner in which nature’s rawness blends with the vertical structures that surround it. For one, it creates a pause between what seem to be "twin cities" (east and west). And from within the park, it frames the city’s edges.
The plan to make the southern end closer to 59th Street and provide more interactive programs like the zoo, restaurants, as well as other leisure activities, provides access between the park and its high-profile "commercial" neighborhood. The northern part of the park is left woody and open, providing an excellent interface with the Metropolitan Museum. Within this vicinity, one can get lost and just stay close to nature.
Central Park appears larger than it is narrow, because of the deft handling of space by Olmstead and Vaux. They interspersed different features around the parks, and gave a twist to its axis by angling and diffusing the features in such a way that they seem to follow the natural pathways of the park. The paths leave the natural terrain free with hills, dells and knolls characterizing a somewhat English meadow on one hand, and a deep, rugged and woody forest of trees that remind you of some North American mountain ranges. Olmstead and Vaux chose not to raze these craggy topical features, leaving the terrain in its natural state, a decision that makes it so unlike other parks.
Thus, it seems almost primeval. Driving through Central Park is like driving through mountains, a spectacle that is so needed when living in a city as frenetic as New York. Central Park provides the necessary void that offers every denizen of New York a pause of silence.
Yoshio Taniguchi is not a famous name in New York City. Even to the cognoscenti, his works are virtually unknown outside of Japan, where his museum designs echo a forceful but "silent" architecture. Having been chosen to design the new Museum of Modern Art over a star-studded roster of architects did raise a few brows at first. After all, in the past several years, museums have been a succession of spectacular feats, starting with the Bilbao Museum of Frank Gehry. Cities today look to museums–not only as a stage for historic culture or collected artifacts–but a more encompassing cultural plateau of art, design, history, events, hospitality, leisure, social interchange, shopping, and as a city landmark. It is a hub that draws tourism and related trades in, serving traffic to the different strata of society. The biggest advantage, however, is the value it gives to the surrounding territory. It stimulates synergies that raise a city’s viability for growth and development. Indeed, high on the list of tourists are cities that offer an abundance of museums. Museums have now almost become a consumer’s brew, a recipe for conversation and, to more serious patrons, a more congenial affiliation with the arts.
The ascendance of museums lately can also be associated with its upsurge in architecture. Museums have long been regarded as almost patrimonial and institutional. Their character has been for many years solemn, regal and monumental. Many, too, were dark, morose, and old; features that would evolve into a more vernacular, congenial edifice enhanced by the master stroke of an innovative architect. The birth of the Guggenheim designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1959 and the Whitney Museum of Art by Marcel Breuer to my mind set the precedent for a new approach towards museum buildings (even if there are other, more prominent museums in the world that were built before them).
The Museum of Modern Art in the 70-plus years of its life has, for better or worse, dedicated itself to the pursuit of elevating excellence in the everyday objects that serve mankind. Armed with perhaps the most discerning collection of domestic artifacts in art, design and architecture, it enjoys provoking with incisive exhibits, a relentless drive for perfection equaled by adroit salesmanship–an education that so far has given design an ennobling sense of achievement. In particular, the extreme level of judgment from its curatorship makes it a real dream to be a part of.
MOMA has undergone a history of makeovers. I remember the Johnson sculptural garden as a student in the early ’80s, then the new tower of Cesar Pelli in ’84. When MOMA decided on the expansion in 1999, they moved to MOMA Queens. Although this would merely be a temporary shelter, it was nevertheless an interesting installation. With a rapidly evolving city outside and an ever-growing collection, a rebirth was inevitable.
To be the architect of this change, Yoshio Taniguchi needed a thorough understanding of what the museum needed. In most situations the role of the architect is to set the precedent for a building’s inception. In MOMA’s case, its programs were long studied and prepared before the selection of architects began. With good reason, because when the final verdict was handed down, the architect that emerged had a number of museum projects on his list of accom-plishments.
Taniguchi’s new MOMA is not an immediate sight spectacle, but is still spectacular nonetheless. Inside, there are very few restrictions on space, connecting you as it does from street to street. When you reach the central part of this enlarged corridor, the atrium sweeps you up like a visual suction caused by a height that extends to the pinnacle of the building. This architectural tactic to "stretch" greets your initial foray into the museum. Walking deeper inside, you are drawn towards the museum’s sculptural garden, a deep landscape "stretch" that takes your gaze into a kind of external emptiness. Taniguchi uses his detailing as a means of recreating art, expressing its contents in a subliminal way.
As you go up, on the first level you emerge upon blocks of incisions that open up to a sea of motion above and below. There is an interplay of long pauses, characterized by enveloping walls which open up to exhibition spaces that have little intervention between installations. As in Central Park, Taniguchi skillfully allows the programs to mingle into the space casually, an incidental arrangement that is able to make your encounter spontaneous.
His handling of the central atrium, where you are exposed to the varying visual fields, cleverly sets the whole monumental space as the main installation. Taniguchi knows his architecture so well that he is able to coordinate the objects within this "container" with his spaces, and not in opposition. In doing so, the transitional spaces become psychological pauses between installations. The architecture is subdued yet powerful, lucid yet seemingly weightless. He steers modernism away from clichés of inventive architecture, instead focusing on humanizing the digital landscape that is the emerging direction in architecture now.
In allowing the museum’s interiors to be seen from the outside, and by creating a somewhat visual tease through its "horizontally banded" gates, (the sculptural garden co-mingling with 54th St.), Taniguchi knits a relationship between the institution and the public. He removes the barrier between the exalted and the average. The culture of excellence bestowed upon design, which are actually objects of utility that serve man, becomes more meaningful.
The new MOMA is a revelation of space, as is Central Park. These two examples reflect the importance of seemingly "negative" spaces, in a city dominated by built structures. In teeming cities, where growth is inevitable, there is a need to structure the voids as well. Through these spaces, our perspectives become deeper.