by: Jessica Sheridan Assoc. AIA LEED AP
Event: MADE IN NEW YORK Exhibition Opening
Location: West 4th Street Subway Station, 10.08-31.10
Organizers: AIANY / Center for Architecture
Sponsors: Kramer Levin
MADE IN NEW YORK exhibition.
Jessica Sheridan
For the second year in a row, the ramps at the West 4th Street subway station are donned with recently built and proposed architecture. While last year’s “NEW YORK NOW” exhibition featured work within the five boroughs of NYC, this year’s “MADE IN NEW YORK” expanded the program to also include international work by AIANY Chapter members completed after 01.01.2006.
Offering a “snapshot of current practice,” according to the exhibition description, projects range in scales and types, from small to large, private to public, and include historic preservation, industrial design, landscape, and urban design. Seemingly random adjacencies bring out the full range of projects while featuring similar themes. For example, the Poets House in Manhattan, by Louise Braverrnan, Architect, is near the Interactive Poetry Walk in East Cleveland, OH, by the NY Art Project with Barry Holden Architect. The sustainable Iraq Ministry of Interior Public Housing in Erbil, Kurdistan, by Arpad Baksa Architect, relates to the Green Roofscapes of the Jacob K. Javits Center Renovation and Expansion by FXFOWLE/Epstein and Ken Smith Landscape Architects.
Because there are no project descriptions — just names of the projects, locations, architects, and engineers — interpretations and connections are made by the viewer. Because the viewers are mostly the public, there is a unique connection that this exhibition makes between project teams and those observing from outside of the profession.
Note: Thirty of the 200 projects will be exhibited at the Zodchestvo 2010 Architectural Festival, opening in Moscow this Thursday, 10.14.10, under the banner, “MADE IN NEW YORK: The Architecture of Social Responsibility.”