America 2

AMERICA2 architectures for Roosevelt Island New York City

AMERICA2 Materials for a museum of the European imaginerie in New York City

Indici / Table of Contents

America² Prologo/Foreword

New York City (why a project in NYC) Roosevelt Island (why a project at RI)

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Americana Americana

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Re-Thinking Louis I. Kahn Re-Thinking Louis I. Kahn

Sue Ann Kahn, Moment of Silence

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Progetti / Projects A cultural center at South Point Park M. Calcinai V. Cerri F. Coricelli, finding

G. Pandolfi S. Ruszczewski L. Pianigiani, illusion G. Fondelli A. Piomboni, sign I. Fanciullacci C. Guerrini S. Hidri, floating A. Cristofaro L. Marrucci F. Pacchiarini, harbour G. Assunti G. Ombrosini E. Perego, looks

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Congedo / Farewell (Henry David Thoreau)

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Note / Annex

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E Virgilio rispuose: Voi credete Forse che siamo esperti d’esto loco; Ma noi siam peregrin come voi siete Dante, Purgatorio, II, 63

I must also ask something of the stranger and the foreigner. What do strange and foreign mean? What, from the point of view of architecture, are a stranger and a foreigner?

Jacques Derrida, Summary of Impromptu Remarks, 58 minutes 41 seconds

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America2 Materiali per un museo dell’immaginario europeo a New York City

America² Materials for a museum of the European imagination in New York City

Prologo

Foreword

Nell’anno accademico 2012-2013 il laboratorio di Progettazione dell’Architettura V° della Scuola di Architettura dell’Università degli Studi di Firenze diretto dal sottoscritto è stato coordinato con il corso di Design Studio della professoressa Elizabeth Kamell della SOA, Syracuse University School of Architecture.

L’isola di Roosevelt Island a New York City è stata il campione di studio scelto.

During the 2012-2013 academic year, the Architecture Design V workshop of the University of Florence School of Architecture, which I directed, was coordinated with the Design Studio course taught by Prof. Elizabeth Kamell of the Syracuse University School of Architecture. We chose Roosevelt Island in New York City as the object of our study.

Le pagine che seguono raccolgono una parte delle proposte progettuali redatte dagli allievi fiorentini; nel loro regolare succedersi tradiscono la speranza di divenire i prolegòmeni di una futura esposizione newyorkese: il salto dai tavoli di lavoro presenti in una scuola alla tavola appesa ai muri di una galleria, il transito dai tables ai tableaux.

The following pages collect a part of the design proposals prepared by the students in Florence. Their regular succession betrays the hope that these may become the prolegomena for a future exhibition in New York – a leap from the drawing boards in a school to the exhibit boards hanging on a gallery wall, a move from tables to tableaux.

New York City (perché un progetto a NYC) Quando nell’autunno del 1935 Le Corbusier arrivò a New York City rimase assai deluso da ciò che trovò: «Not big enough» fu la sua lapidaria sentenza. Per essere la testimonianza e l’espressione più aggiornata della «société moderne», Manhattan gli apparve infatti essere ancora troppo densa e caotica, troppo disorganizzata e primitiva. L’urbanesimo all’altezza dell’Esprit Nouveau - quello annunciato in Une ville radieuse. Élément d’une doctrine d’urbanisme pour l’équipement de la civilisation machiniste - doveva reggersi su algide quanto nette geometrie cartesiane e non sui tumulti ed i clamori propri di una metropoli in definitiva sempre attardata su motivi tardoromantici carichi di un «lyrisme disgracieux» (Descartes est-il américain?). In sintesi potremmo affermare che l’occhio corbusieriano aveva intuito e riconosciuto le latenti corrispondenze che la capitale del secolo XXI° intratteneva con le memorie europee e da ciò il disappunto e l’irritazione manifestate dallo svizzero - precedenti di qualche anno, 1921, le considerazioni di James Monroe Hewlett: «But New York, in addition to being a lot of other things, in a Venice in the making, and all the ugly paraphernalia by means of which this making is slowly going forward, all the unlovely processes, physical and chemical, structural and commercial, must be recognized and expressed and by the light of poetic vision be made a part of its beauty and ro-

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mance» (Peter Marcus, New York: the Nation’s Metropolis). Facciamo nostra questa lettura ma ne rovesciamo gli esiti: certamente NYC non è «course passionnée jusqu’aux buts le plus spiritualisés», certamente non è governata dalla «dignité sereine de la proportion», certamente «on a laissé les rues d’autrefois au pied du gratte-ciel»: ma proprio nella paradossale prossimità ad un «nouveau moyen âge» che questa città diviene per noi campo fertile di esercizio. Prossimità e distanza, vicinanza e differenza: rispetto allo sfacelo delle waste lands informi e senza fine della globalizzazione contemporanea NYC è luogo che - nella mutazione incessante - ha dato prova di una forma urbis resistente (una conferma della persistenza dei tracciati e del piano formulata da Marcel Poète e da Pierre Lavedan è lo stesso Gridiron Plan già delineato nel 180711). E tuttavia non è città europea - lecito poi chiedersi se mai lo sia stata la stessa Nowel Amsterdam/Nieuw Amsterdam. Agli allievi del corso è stato chiesto di misurare, per tramite del progetto, le affinità e le linee di fuga, le connessioni e le opposizioni tra la tradizione morfologica europea e quella nordamericana: un lavoro di analisi, smontaggio e ri-composizione degli universi semantici, iconografici e concettuali sospesi tra le sponde dell’Atlantico, dal pragmatismo di Harvey W. Corbett all’attitudine visionaria di Rem Koolhsaas.

New York City (why a project in NYC) When in the fall of 1935 Le Corbusier arrived in New York City, he was rather disappointed by what he found: «Not big enough» was his lapidary judgment. Manhattan seemed to him to be still too dense and chaotic, too disorganized and primitive to serve as the witness and most up-to-date expression of «société moderne». Urban planning worthy of the Esprit Nouveau – as announced in Une ville radieuse. Élément d’une doctrine d’urbanisme pour l’équipement de la civilisation machiniste – should be based on cool, clean-lined Cartesian geometry, not on the tumult and clamor typical of a metropolis ultimately still attached to late romantic motifs laden with a «lyrisme disgracieux» (Descartes est-il américain?). In synthesis, we could say that Le Corbusier’s eye had intuited and recognized the latent correspondences with memories of Europe maintained by the capital of the twenty-first century, and this was the source of the Swiss architect’s disappointment and irritation - just few years before, 1921, the James Monroe Hewlett’s observations: «But New York, in addition to being a lot of other things, in a Venice in the making, and all the ugly paraphernalia by means of which this making is slowly going forward, all the unlovely processes, physical and chemical, structural and commercial, must be recognized and expressed and by the light of poetic vision be made a part of its beauty and romance» (Peter Marcus, New York: the Nation’s Metropolis). Let us adopt

this reading, but overturning its results: certainly New York City is not «course passionnée jusqu’aux buts le plus spiritualisés», certainly it is not governed by the «dignité sereine de la proportion», certainly «on a laissé les rues d’autrefois au pied du gratte-ciel»: but it is precisely in its paradoxical proximity to a «nouveau moyen âge» that this city becomes for us a fertile exercise ground. Proximity and distance, closeness and difference: Compared to the ruination of the formless, boundless wastelands of contemporary globalization, New York City is a place that – in its incessant mutation – has given proof of a resistant forma urbis (confirmation of the endurance of the layout and urban planning formulated by Marcel Poète and Pierre Lavedan comes from the Gridiron Plan, delineated as early as 18071811). And yet it is not a European city, and it is fair to ask if Nowel Amsterdam/Nieuw Amsterdam ever was. In drawing up their plans, the students were asked to measure the affinities and vanishing points, connections and oppositions between the European and the American morphological traditions, in a labor of analysis, dismantling and re-composition of the semantic, iconographic, and conceptual universes suspended between the shores of the Atlantic, from the pragmatic Harvey W. Corbett to the visionary Rem Koolhaas.

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Joseph Beuys, I like America and America likes me, Renè Block Gallery, New York City 1974

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Roosevelt Island (perché un progetto a RI) Esistono delle città invisibili che sono le sorelle di quelle palesi; Italo Calvino ne aveva descritte alcune ritenendo che tali città nascoste (o città sprofondate, città sottomarine...) non fossero che il magazzino delle rêveries, dei cangiamenti, dei futuri non realizzati, del non-detto, dello spirituale, che ogni città di pietra sedimenta sotto i propri selciati. Una costellazione instabile capace di produrre immagini impreviste così come in un caleidoscopio poche scaglie di vetro colorato danno vita a sorprendenti configurazioni. La difficoltà risiede nel fatto che questi due regni sono presenti in ogni istante secondo inestricabili connessioni e conflitti ed anzi in taluni casi è arduo separarne i rispettivi confini e domini.

NYC fa parte di questa genia urbana al massimo grado, ed anzi possiamo considerare come - all’interno dei suoi confini - si diano dislocazioni, distanziamenti, fratture, eterotopie: «Il y a également, et ceci probablement dans toute culture, dans toute civilisation, des lieux réels, des lieux effectifs, des lieux qui ont dessinés dans l’institution même de la société, et qui sont des sortes de contre-emplacements, sortes d’utopies effectivement réalisées dans lesquelles les emplacements réels, tous les autres emplacements réels que l’on peut trouver à l’intérieur de la culture sont à la fois représentés, contestés et inversés, des sortes de

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lieux qui sont hors de tous les lieux, bien que pourtant ils soient effectivement localisables.

Ces lieux, parce qu’ils sont absolument autres que tous les emplacements qu’ils reflètent et dont ils parlent, je les appellerai, par opposition aux utopies, les hétérotopies; et je crois qu’entre les utopies et ces emplacements absolument autres, ces hétérotopies, il y aurait sans doute une sorte d’expérience mixte, mitoyenne, qui serait le miroir». Nello scorrere delle historiae di Roosevelt Island scorgiamo i riflessi di alcune osservazioni di Michel Foucault (Des Espaces Autres, 1967/1984); quando luogo privilegiato, quando luogo riservato, quando luogo interdetto, quando luogo deviato («hétérotopies qu’on pourrait appeler de déviation...»), l’isola è lo spazio dappresso, ma lontanissimo, destinato alla sistemazione ed al controllo delle menti e dei corpi se giudicati corrotti, degradati, pericolosi. È lo sdipanarsi della storia che da paradiso edenico - il suo primo nome fu Minnahanonck, l’“isola bella” nella lingua dei nativi - passa a campo agricolo per giungere al suo impiego denaturato e concentrazionario: l’ospedale, l’ospizio, il manicomio, il carcere. Poi gli anni dell’abbandono, poi gli anni degli esperimenti di rigenerazione urbana. Sappiamo che tra le eterotopie vi sono quelle derivate dalla suddivisione del tempo (hétérochronies) o al suo sommarsi

infinito: i musei e le biblioteche, vale a dire «le projet d’organiser ainsi une sorte d’accumulation perpétuelle et indéfinie du temps dans un lieu qui ne bougerait pas, eh bien, tout cela appartient à notre modernité».

L’isola/eterotopia assai più che l’isola/utopia (Atlantide, Utopia, la Città del Sole...) fa deflagrare il continuum storico e spaziale della Groszstadt efficiente e normalizzata, aprendo in essa degli intervalli strani/estranei: sono in quelle fessure, in quegli scarti fecondi, che può trovar rifugio il mundus imaginalis degli stranieri «quia peregrini et hospites sunt super terram» (Paolo, Hebr., 11.13).

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Roosevelt Island (why a project at RI) There exist invisible cities that are sisters of the openly visible ones. Italo Calvino had described some, holding that these hidden cities (or sunken cities, cities under the sea…) were nothing other than the storehouse of reveries, changes, futures not realized, the unsaid, the spiritual, which every city built of stone deposits as a sediment under its pavements: a shifting able constellation capable of producing unexpected images, just as in a kaleidoscope a few pieces of colored glass give rise to surprising configurations. The difficulty lies in the fact that these two realms are present in every instant following inextricable connections and conflicts, and indeed in some cases it is an arduous task to sort out their respective boundaries and domains. New York City is a part of this urban genia to the nth degree; indeed, we can consider how – within its confines – dislocations, distancing, fractures, heterotopias – take place: «Il y a également, et ceci probablement dans toute culture, dans toute civilisation, des lieux réels, des lieux effectifs, des lieux qui ont dessinés dans l’institution même de la société, et qui sont des sortes de contre-emplacements, sortes d’utopies effectivement réalisées dans lesquelles les emplacements réels, tous les autres emplacements réels que l’on peut trouver à l’intérieur de la culture sont à la fois représentés, con-

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testés et inversés, des sortes de lieux qui sont hors de tous les lieux, bien que pourtant ils soient effectivement localisables. Ces lieux, parce qu’ils sont absolument autres que tous les emplacements qu’ils reflètent et dont ils parlent, je les appellerai, par opposition aux utopies, les hétérotopies; et je crois qu’entre les utopies et ces emplacements absolument autres, ces hétérotopies, il y aurait sans doute une sorte d’expérience mixte, mitoyenne, qui serait le miroir». Reviewing rapidly the historiae of Roosevelt Island, we see the reflections of some observations by Michel Foucault (Des Espaces Autres, 1967/1984): At times a privileged place, at times reserved, at times forbidden, at times deviated («hétérotopies qu’on pourrait appeler de deviation…»), the island is the space right at hand and yet so distant, destined to the accommodation and control of minds and bodies if these are judged corrupt, degraded, or dangerous. It is the unfolding of a history which from being a Garden of Eden – its earliest name was Minnehanonck, “beautiful isle” in the language of the natives – became farmland before reaching its denatured, concentration-type use: hospital, rest home, insane asylum, prison. Then the years of neglect and abandonment, followed by the years of experiments in urban rehabilitation.

We know that among the heterotopies there

are the ones derived from the subdivision of time (hétérochronies) or its infinite summation: the museums and libraries, that is to say «le projet d’organiser ainsi une sorte d’accumulation perpétuelle et indéfinie du temps dans un lieu qui ne bougerait pas, eh bien, tout cela appartient à notre modernité». The island/heterotopia much more than the island/utopia (Atlantis, Utopia, the City of the Sun…) sets in motion the historic and spatial continuum of the efficient and standardized Groszstadt, opening up strange/estranged intervals in it; it is in these fissures, these fecund lapses, that the mundus imaginalis of foreigners can find refuge «quia peregrini et hospites sunt super terram» (Paul’s Letter to the Hebrews, 11.13).

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America2 - Atelier of Building Construction, students

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AMERICANA

Americana «Mitico chiamiamo perciò questo stato aurorale; e miti le varie immagini che balenano, sempre le stesse per ciascuno di noi, in fondo alla coscienza. Esse vivono in quanto tuttora non risolte nell’evidenza poetica o nella chiarezza razionale, ma irradiano tanta vita, tanto calore, tanta promessa di luce, che riescono in definitiva altrettanti fuochi o fari della nostra coscienza».

Cesare Pavese, La letteratura americana e altri saggi, Torino, Einaudi, 1951 Il “secolo americano” prima ancora che assetto politico ed economico è stato impero mondiale delle attese, delle speranze, delle proiezioni: uno spazio siderale capace di accogliere ed ospitare anche le più contraddittorie delle immagini, i più vertiginosi dei pensieri. Un composto eterogeneo e diacronico che ha saldato definitivamente tra loro la forza e l’incanto della geografia fisica - i cieli aperti, i deserti, gli oceani, le praterie, i fiumi, le foreste - e la forza e la seduzione dei media culturali - i grandi centri urbani, le freeways, i costumi di vita, il cinematografo, la letteratura, le arti plastiche, il teatro, l’espressione musicale. Natur und Geist secondo molteplici, quanto mobili, assemblaggi.

Parallelo all’esercizio compositivo più strettamente disciplinare è stato richiesto ad ogni

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allievo del corso di raccogliere in un taccuino dalla copertina rossa - notebook moleskine 12,8x21 cm - la moltitudine dei simulacri e delle parole che strutturano e descrivono il suo sguardo sugli Stati Uniti, un diario dell’immaginario, un atlante delle “drammaturgie” e delle “rappresentazioni” che si sono depositate, nel tempo, al fondo della memoria individuale e dell’inconscio collettivo. Americana è la somma dei suddetti quaderni: una registrazione di energia onirica e di residui mnestici accumulati più che un resoconto di concrete esperienze vissute o la traccia di studi culturali compatti e coerenti - la fantasmagoria come primo reperto di qualsivoglia autentica flânerie.

Americana «Mitico chiamiamo perciò questo stato aurorale; e miti le varie immagini che balenano, sempre le stesse per ciascuno di noi, in fondo alla coscienza. Esse vivono in quanto tuttora non risolte nell’evidenza poetica o nella chiarezza razionale, ma irradiano tanta vita, tanto calore, tanta promessa di luce, che riescono in definitiva altrettanti fuochi o fari della nostra coscienza».

Cesare Pavese, La letteratura americana e altri saggi, Turin, Einaudi, 1951.

The American Century, more than being a political and economic order, was a world empire of expectations, hopes, and projections, an enormous space capable of encompassing and embracing even the greatest contradictions, the most dizzying thoughts. It is a heterogeneous and diachronic mixture that has definitively melded together the force and enchantment of physical geography – open skies, deserts, oceans, prairies, rivers, and forests – and the strength and seduction of the cultural media: the great metropolises, freeways, customs, movies, literature, the plastic arts, theater, and musical expression: Natur und Geist following multiple, and mobile, assemblages.

Parallel with the compositional exercise more strictly tied to the discipline, each student in

the course was asked to collect in a red 5 x 8 inch Moleskine notebook the multitude of images and words which structure and describe his view of the United States: a diary of the imagination, an atlas of the “theatres” and “representations” that have been deposited, over time, in the back of individual memory and the collective unconscious. Americana is the sum of these notebooks: a recording of dream energy and of accumulated mnemonic residues, rather than an account of concrete lived experiences or the outline of compact, coherent cultural studies – phantasmagoria as the first specimen of any authentic flânerie.

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Katsiaryna Makhunova Myrtaj Nevida, Quaderni rossi

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RE-THINKING LOUIS I. KAHN

Re-thinking Louis I. Kahn «I had this thought that a memorial should be a room and a garden (...) The garden is somehow a personal nature, a personal kind of control of nature, a gathering of nature. And the room was the beginning of architecture. I had this sense, you see, and the room wasn’t just architecture, but was an extension of self.»

Louis I. Kahn, Pratt Institute Lecture, 1973 Immaginare nuove costruzioni a South Point Park implica doversi confrontare con l’ultimo lascito di un grande Maestro. E ciò secondo due assetti, o attraverso due distinti paradigmi logici; un primo si sostanzia nella necessità di relazionarsi al monumento attraverso le sue dimensioni, il suo disporsi nel lotto, le sue materie costruttive: un esercizio sulle condizioni fisiche della «stanza» e del «giardino». Ma comprendere un’opera significa risalire alla sua più lontana origine nel tentativo di illuminare la generale Weltanschauung da cui essa proviene. Oltre l’episodio specifico è dunque opportuno investigare ed interrogare l’intero habitus linguistico del suo autore. Lo strumento scelto per un percorso di esplorazione e di scavo è stato il modello tridimensionale: assemblando interi edifici o parti di essi, la trama spaziale sottesa dal disegno ha guadagnato progressivamente le sue membra, rivelando con chiarezza i principi e le sintassi composi-

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tive che la innervano. Una collezione di pezzi e frammenti: rifacimenti talvolta imperfetti che comunque si offrono come sostegno indispensabile all’apprendimento. È nostra radicata convinzione che l’educazione sia un processo - lento e consapevole - di discernimento ed imitazione trasformatrice che nulla condivide con l’ideologia della mimesi passiva o del “ritorno” o della nouveauté; semplicemente con Gustave Flaubert diremo che «l’observation procède surtout par l’imagination».

Re-thinking Louis I. Kahn «I had this thought that a memorial should be a room and a garden (...) The garden is somehow a personal nature, a personal kind of control of nature, a gathering of nature. And the room was the beginning of architecture. I had this sense, you see, and the room wasn’t just architecture, but was an extension of self.»

Louis I. Kahn, Pratt Institute Lecture, 1973 Imagining new constructions at South Point Park involves having to measure oneself against the final legacy left by a great master. And this has to happen in accordance with two different orders, or through two different logical paradigms. The first takes concrete form in the need to set up a relationship with the monument in terms of its size, position on the lot, and building materials: an exercise on the physical conditions of the “room” and the “garden.” But understanding a work means going back to its most remote origin in the attempt to illuminate the general Weltanschauung from which it comes. Besides the specific episode, it is therefore opportune to investigate and interrogate the entire linguistic habitus of its designer. The chosen tool for a process of exploration and excavation was the three-dimensional model: by assembling

entire buildings or parts of buildings, the spatial web subtended by the drawing progressively acquired its limbs, revealing clearly the principles and compositional syntaxes that give it its structure. A collection of pieces and fragments: remakes sometimes imperfect that nonetheless offer themselves as an indispensable support to learning. It is our deep-rooted conviction that education is a process – slow and deliberate – of discernment and transforming innovation that has nothing in common with the ideology of passive mimesis or the “return” or nouveauté; simply, with Gustave Flaubert we would say that «l’observation procède surtout par l’imagination».

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Moment of Silence I remember when Franklin D. Roosevelt died.

It was dinner time. The radio had been moved to the dining room, my family listening for reports on the President’s condition, a scene no doubt played out in homes across the country.

Now, suddenly, we were all standing, silent, with heads bowed, dinner abandoned on the table. I was told that Roosevelt was dead and how important he had been for our country, for the world, and for our family.

The betterment of mankind was a paramount theme among my parents’ circle of friends and colleagues. Almost the entirety of my father’s early architectural practice was devoted to uplifting people’s lives through enlightened design of mass housing and community planning. Many projects he worked on or spearheaded were funded by Roosevelt’s Public Works Administration, Resettlement Administration, and other arms of the New Deal.

Standing in the Salk Institute plaza, bathed in the light of the Kimbell galleries, enthralled by the majesty of Dhaka, pondering the notebooks of poetical jottings, it is easy to forget that the creator of these was, early on, a fervent advocate for and an authority on public housing. In the end, my father was indeed able to enhance and enrich people’s lives through his art, a legacy of which I am fiercely

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proud. My generation has reaped the benefits of Roosevelt’s social agenda, for which I am profoundly grateful.

The final design for the New York memorial to Franklin D. Roosevelt was completed just months before my father died. I believe it to be a work of great power and clarity. Light years away from his early practice, it was created after he had absorbed the lessons of the great monuments that endure, still vital through the ages. It is the only completed late work of his that remains unbuilt.

I look forward to going there, to experiencing the Garden and the Room, to savor the moments of silence.

Sue Ann Kahn, New York City, December 2004

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Nazareno Caputo Yiannis Chrysochou, Hurva Synagogue - modello in carton legno

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1962/83 - the National Assembly Building, Dacca, Bangladesh.

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1959/65 - Salk Institute for Biological Studies, California.

1974 - Hurva Syanagogue, Jerusalem.

1967/ 1972 - Kimbell Museum, Fort Worth, Texas .

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PROGETTI / PROJECTS

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Un Centro culturale a South Point Park

A cultural center at South Point Park

South Point Park è un giardino nel lembo meridionale di Roosevelt Island; il sito è circoscritto tra la Road 3 ed il Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Fredoms Park. Uniche costruzioni presenti nell’area sono i resti di due strutture una volta destinate alla cura: The Smallpox Hospital e lo Strecker Memorial Laboratory (restaurato nel 2000). La posizione di quest’area è di evidente rilievo valutando le destinazioni d’uso ad essa tangenti: il memoriale kahniano a sud ed il nuovo campus tecnologico della Cornell University che troverà sede nel lotto a nord, dove ora sorge il Coler-Goldwater Specialty Hospital and Nursing Facility. Il programma funzionale prevede la realizzazione di un complesso culturale - museo, biblioteca, auditorio, laboratori per lo studio, ristorante, caffetteria - e la sistemazione a parco delle rimanenti superfici non edificate; i due edifici ottocenteschi sono stati mantenuti e devono essere integrati nel nuovo masterplan, così come deve essere salvaguardata la vocazione pubblica dell’intero comparto. Fondamentale il rapporto che i nuovi volumi e le relative pertinenze andranno a tessere con l’intorno vicino e di sfondo: il Four Freedoms Park, l’East River - rispetto al quale si può predisporre una banchina di attracco per l’East River Ferry - e il doppio skyline di Manhattan e Queens.

South Point Park is a park near the southern tip of Roosevelt Island. The site is circumscribed between Road 3 and Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park. The only buildings in the area are the remains of two structures once used for health care activities: the Smallpox Hospital and Strecker Memorial Laboratory (restored in 2000). The position of this area is clearly important, considering the purposes of what is around it: Louis Kahn’s memorial to the south and the new technological campus of Cornell University, which will be built on the lot to the north where the Coler-Goldwater Specialty Hospital and Nursing Facility now stands.

The functional program calls for the construction of a cultural center – museum, library, auditorium, workshops, restaurant, and cafeteria – and the landscaping of the remaining unbuilt areas. The two nineteenth-century buildings were maintained and will be integrated into the new master plan, just as the public use of the entire site must be safeguarded. The relation that the new volumes and relative accessories will set up with its close neighbors and backdrop is fundamental: the Four Freedoms Park, the East River – a ferry slip for the East River Ferry can be installed – and the skylines of Manhattan and Queens.

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_Martina Calcinai, Valerio Cerri, Federico Coricelli finding

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CONCEPT How do we imagine America? From wich point of view should we look at Manhattan? These questions suggested us to rediscover Manhattan from the sea, as it was for the European immigrants before landing in the New World.

The architecture in Manhattan has a transitory characteristic, because of its planning of the “grid”, according to the principle of demolition-reconstruction. The typologies that seem to be unchanged in time, in comparison to the city’s evolution, are the piers along the river.

Our new multiporpose centre’s public space would like to act as a cultural exhange platform. A public gathering spot, where people can escape the chaotic lifestyle of the city.

Roosvelt Island, formerly used to host prisions and hospitals, is another place of escape. The presence of the Kahn monument transformed it into a land of silence and meditation. The project is a natural extension of the paths well defined by Louis Kahn. Our strategy is to concentrate the built masses on the western bank of the island traced on the alignments within the context. A tension among three volumes that define a void in the center. The path that transversally crosses the island enters the building projecting itself on the sea with a dock towards the city.

Crossing the island from the Queensboro

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Bridge the first volume perceived is the pier, that mindful of the nautical tectonics, it raises on a cls basement with a metallic structure and wood panel. The volume, lined up with the Smallpox hospital, has a transparent ground-fllor as filter among the square and the new park. The third volume lined up with Kahn’s monument, it lies on the river, creating a wall through the city from the square, and rediscovering inside the building establishing a dialectical relationship among what is exhibited in the cultural (imaginary American) center and the city in its real forms.The western side of the site, to balance the volumes, is treated as a large park for external enviroments with a principal avenue in continuity with the Kahn’s monument and secondary runs perpendicular to the building’s access. The principal paths use the materials from the place, like granite and stone, while the secondary are made in architectural concrete. On the rivers we use trees of the four freedom’s park, while on the inside we use taller trees to bring shade on the paths.

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LAYOUT The main access to the complex is situated to north, underlined by a bridge on water tanks that surround the volume of the auditorium.

The other accesses are from the park: the first one, moved toward north, it introduces to the entrance hall of laboratories, library, auditorium and guesthouse; the second, divides laboratories from the offices making independent entries. The museum is on a lower ground surface (-2.50), its access is allowed by an external stair that goes to the docks, or a ramp along the fountain connected with cafè. The coffee shop is situated on the end of museum’s volume, projected toward the Kahn’s monument with a large terrace, and accessible from the park.

There’s no continuity solution between the complex activities, beacuse we organised all the public functions and areas connected with a large entrance hall on the corner, as a unique public space where people can interact. Our proposal is to guarantee a flexible-integration of the activities for the new multiporpose centre. The museum is the only volumes with a separate access,both for administrative matters both to valorize the function and the relationship with the city. The volume, tall 17.6 m, are divided in four floors: at the ground-floor will find the cinema-auditorium, with a capabil-

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ity of 720 seats, two wide side corridors bring to the ground surface +4.60 (be equipped with other seats) that culminates in an area facing a large window to the entire height that frames the skyline of New York ; at the first-floor two projection-room, each with a capability of 100 seats in close collaboration with the library. At the upper floors will find the guest-house and caretaker’s house distributed by a galleryoverlooking a patio digging three floors the entire volume up to the roof. The side to the park contains laboratories/atelier on the ground floor, facing to the nature, allowing any outdoor performance. The edn parto of this block contains the offices located on two levels in order to split the working areas and relaxing areas.

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At the upper level, the library is organized around patios that allow to light up the room and create different closed areas opposed to the gallery. The museum is divided into two levels: from the lobby (ground surface -2.50) can accessed the temporary and the permanent exhibition hall. The rooms are scanned by partitions and remain open along its length towards the glass wall, to maintain constant the ratio between the visitor and the city. The unique element of the exhibition is the “red journalâ€? hall, a double height volume with a cover inside, a hut, that directs light from above making it spread gradually down. Covering the full path overlooking the sea is the cafè at ground surface zero At higher levels the permanent exhibition continues with an exhibition gallery and spaces for teaching.

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MATERIALS The structure of the three volumes is made of steel, with pillars and beams HE 300 composed of sections “C” 150x300. From 4.60 share the perimeter frames are braced by diagonal beams, forming the reticular frames to the whole plan. This system is performed at the end of the auditorium where the structure supports a span of 20m. The only parts made of C.A. are the foundations, that being in contact with the sea they form a box on the perimeters of buildings to share floodable.

Natural light plays an important role in the project, despite the mainly closed façades, we use different lighting system. At the ground floor laboratories and offices have an aperture 3 meters high. The upper levels obatained light from patio system,also used as open spaces, or skylight systems in the museum that bring a thinner light appropriate to the expositions.

IThe auditorium has a semi-trasparent facade made of wood brise soleil.

The entire complex has the same structure, anyway the facades are developed to the top according to the logic of the Kahn’s monument. We use concrete panels up to a height of three meters, while in the upper part we applie granite panels.

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01_facade structure: white granite panel 10mm on structural steel (L), waterproof layer, insulation panel 150+50mm, inner lining on aluminum frameworks (L). 02_alluminium frameworks fixed windows with thermal insulation and low-emissivity double glazing 8/16/6. 03_horizontal structure: polished concrete floor 30mm, screed lightweight concrete 50mm, vapor barrier, thermal insulation expanded polystyrene 60mm, corrugated steel, cast reinforced concrete cooperative 300mm, lean mix concrete 200mm. 04_ floating floor on adjustable feet. 05_roof structure: coated concrete panels 50mm, steel frame on adjustable brackets, waterproof layer, expanded polystyrene insulation board 80mm, vapor barrier, lightweight concrete 160mm. 05b_strip wood 50x300mm, frosted plexiglass panel 20mm. 06_polished concrete 50mm. 07_inner lining on alluminium frames, acustic insulation layer. 09_ reinforced concrete plinth, pier and foundations, reinforced concrete structure with pre-tentioned piles foundation. 10_steel pillar 300x300mm, thermal insulation. 11_steel beam 300x150mm.

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_Giulio Pandolfi, Szymon Ruszczewski, Lorenzo Pianigiani

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CONCEPT Like a raft, the main project building stands above the water of the East River which flows silently beneath. Its main façade, a continuous and simple glass wall, makes it easier to establish a relationship between the river and architecture. A long pedestrian bank beneath the building becomes thus a pleasant promenade between the water and its reflection in the glass.

The continuity of the façade reappears also in the compact roof which covers the entire structure. The idea of a raft, of an architecture in-between is dictated by the position of the project area, on the Roosevelt Island between Manhattan and Queens, but also it is due to the function of the complex: a European museum in America, a place of reflection and contact between two continents.

The building creates a continuous line together with Louis I. Kahn’s Four Freedoms Park so the pedestrian street may be conceived also as a path towards the monument. The continuity between two structures underlines the importance and the geometrical dominance of Kahn’s architecture: its low inclined ramps and stairs continue with the riverbank and the roof. Not only a promenade, the riverbank becomes a quay accessible directly for boats – so the passengers may descend on land as

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well as many immigrants did over a century ago. It becomes an example of a living by-water space, a true waterfront of the island.

The remaining part of the complex stands behind the continuous glass wall of the building and it is organized mainly below the park level, so only a few volumes emerge and tend to dialogue with the smallpox hospital ruins. In such a way, the project succeeds in maintaining one of the most important characteristics of the southern ending of the Roosevelt Island – the park.

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LAYOUT The raft building on the banks of the East River unites diverse functions under its continuous roof: a multimedia library, several art workshops, guest lodgings and an office space for the complex administration. The idea of connecting different functions into one architectural organism was due to the innate opportunity which such an organization gives for the users. Even if different parts of the complex have their own separate entrances, the connections enable easier contact between diverse activities, and the complex itself remains a living building all day long.

The remaining part of the complex consists of two volumes and a series of courtyards which limit the amount of construction leaving the main part of the lot as park terrain. The glassand-steel building hosts the entrance to the underground museum and to the lone-standing solid volume of the auditorium.

At the underground level, the common foyer remains the main space which is connected to all other functions – cloakroom, ticket offices or small conference and press rooms. The main auditorium hall has a spacious backstage with staff and artists rooms and storage spaces. The European museum is organized as a series of spaces around two main courtyards. The first one gathers the café and the

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bookshop, whereas the second one divides the exposition area in two part – the temporary and the permanent exhibitions. The courtyard itself becomes an open-air gallery of sculpture and offers a space for making temporary installations.

At the ground level, the park occupies the main part of the area. Several rectilinear paths cross the grass plain – in order to give the possibility to pass from one side of the island to another, and also to press the accent on the in-between accent of the architecture.

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MATERIALS The project materials tend to establish a continuity between the new architecture and Louis I. Kahn’s monument. The riverbank quay has a concrete structure with pre-tensioned pile foundation and the necessary equipment for mooring (rings and bitts), whether the external cladding continues to use the white granite present in the Roosevelt Monument. The upper part of the raft building is a glass-andGlulam beam structure which enables to create a transparent building offering less visual obstacles in perceiving New York panorama from both inside the building and from the inner part of the park. The idea of a transparent building is connected thus to the skyscraper tradition and the curtain wall model established in America as the symbol of modern architecture.

The beam-and-column structure is present also in the glass-and-Glulam museum entrance building which creates a link between the raft building and the rest of the complex.

The auditorium volume has a different, wall load-bearing structure, and it is conceived as a lighthouse building, both solid and illuminated from the inside by night. The cladding in cloudy translucent plastic succeeds in creating a solid volume which does not give an impression of heaviness for the outside. In such a way, it

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creates a new theme, different from the stone smallpox hospital ruins.

The underground floor of the foyer and museum is composed of a series of load-bearing walls and columns around the courtyards. The interiors are finished in a stonework cladding – marble or granite, whereas the courtyards are limited by a glass-and-steel structure. The walls of the museum rooms offer a neutral setting for the expositions – and thus the cladding remains simple and monochrome.

1_ roof structure: Glulam timber with a lock plate and rainwater drain system in corten-type steel. 2_ false ceiling: timber panels covering air-conditioning and fire systems, with external granite panel cladding and high-density insulation layer. 3_ faรงade structure: steal beams with plasterboard cladding and a continuous faรงade with aluminum framework fixed windows with thermal insulation and low-emissivity double glazing; one-module-high awning window. 4_ horizontal structure: HEA steel beams with metal sheet with concrete field and screed base for wooden floor cladding; air-conditioning and fire systems, with external granite panel cladding and high-density insulation layer. 5_ faรงade structure: steal beams with plasterboard cladding and a continuous faรงade with aluminum framework fixed windows with thermal insulation and low-emissivity double glazing; aluminum framework glass door 6_ pier and foundations: pier cover with architectural claddind with mooring system (bitts and rings); reinforced concrete structure with pre-tentioned piles foundation.

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_Giacomo Fondelli, Alessio Piomboni

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CONCEPT The monument to Roosevelt tentatively put on the skyline of the island, by giving precedence to the nature and built on the breath leaving one of the last remaining pristine areas in the city. Right here comes our design concepts.

Segno, a sign, as if to mark what he thought about the American architect. The project is developed it with the elements as to make the new complex a functional “threshold�, a limit that arises between the built and natural, without taking over the suoth Point Park, in fact enhance it making it the center point of our project.

In response to a functional program which has as its theme the design of a new cultural complex within the limits of the park, which will have to understand and incorporate in its master plan The Smallpox Hospital and Memorial Laboratory Streker two nineteenth-century buildings in the park, offer a compact architecture that has a priority to safeguard the possibility of crossing the entire area with pedestrian paths that maintain the continuity of existing moving toward the memorial, but above all to preserve the visual impact that tries to be as unobtrusive as possible.

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LAYOUT The decision was in fact that of the emergence from the ground level of the project only part of the volumes certificates to the ends of the island, while the central part is treated with the large water basin, which leave free a view to the new South Point Park.In contrast to the heights of the new volumes in the context become very modest, on the west coast stands out a tower, which, in the same sense of the concept is also wants to be a sign of the limit beyond which takes over the green and nature.

The project area is then re-evaluated in all its perimeter, thanks to the listed above routes that come flanked in the long river still by rows of Tilia and†by a parapet coated white granite that distinguishes the lines if of the island is to be appreciated both by Qeens Manhattan. All functions of the suoth Point Art Center, with exception of the guest lodgings, which is incorporated into the regular grid of the future technological setting campus of Cornell University, have been distributed in a very rigid and linear which is also arranged in the best exposure to sunlight .

The design of the park and its routes has been central to enter to full the project at the South Point Park, which has been redesigned to be enjoyable by future users of the complex,

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and the tourists who visit the park each day and in particular the monument designed by Kahn, but not limited to, our proposal through the new green spaces divided by a mesh of routes and to become this new space to serve the city and the citizens who can now find a new place in Roosevelt Island to get away from it chaotic metropolis. It can be appreciated from the profiles as the project except the volume on the west coast, is developed basically in three grounds.Coming from the Queensboro Bridge to the zero level of project you can bypass the entire splint of buildings going towards the memorial, or go directly to at the Auditorium from covered plaza on the east side rather than to the distribution system of the library and laboratories located at the base of the tower. Thanks to of steps and ramps you can also go down to the share -3, where there is a external distribution system that allows users to access the second square blanket, and to appreciate river sull’esast a cafeteria with terrace situated on the coast looks at the Queens in the lead of the auditorium block. From the covered piazza to -3 users can go down to the halls of the museum as laboratories located at -7 ground, but they can also have direct access to the paths of the park that gently goes back to zero level.

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MATERIALS The choice of materials has sprung from our will to unite those materials that recalling the American building traditions of the past with the new style that Louis Kahn gave at the site.The facades are coated in brick type Petersen,†which has feature as well as the form most modern and interesting of the classic brick that takes up the colors of of old New York of buildings often built with element used in the ages prior to the construction of city of Manhattan, the red brick.For hedges and facades of the tower, we chose to use the same material used by Khan in the Four Freedom Park. Of the slabs of white granite of North Carolina, that going down from the new profiles of the project and are continuing along the coast of the island for then join the memorial giving continuity to the tones and colors in the skyline of the southern part of the island.

To characterize the interior of the tower is designed in a ventilated wall brick which, thanks to its seriality, let in a particular light inside a compartment†full height starting from the share rises to office on the top floor of the indoor coffee shop. Looking at the laboratories which are accessible by the tower, we can see that they are well served by a simple distribution that starts with the grand lobby entrance on landing spot in front of the stairs and elevators, also useful for temporary exhibitions.

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The museum accessible instead by the share -3, start with ticket office flanked by the bookshop, then served by a ramp for the disabled in accordance with law that allows visitors to get off to -7 level where exposure. Laboratories and the museum room are facing onto the open courtyards that accompany the environments in their long side. Finally we get to the volume of ‘auditorium. The auditorium has a regular plan with a large foyer able to absorb the flow of input and output of users. From the foyer you can go directly to the main room, and thanks to another block you can go down the stairs to the rooms of Projection secondary placed to share -3. Finally detached from the whole complex there is a final volume that goes to mingle among the new buildings on campus, where the functions are enclosed guest house, canteen and caretaker’s house.

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E. 01_External cladding in North Carolina granite. 02_Ventilated facade. 03_Marble floor stripe. P. 01_External cladding in North Carolina granite. 02_Ventilated facade. 03_Fixed window. 04_Steel column 13.8 in. x 13.8 in.

05_Hollow brick infill wall with white plaster cladding. S. 01_External cladding in North Carolina granite. 02_White plaster 7.9 in. 03_Granite floor stripe. 04_Horizontal structure: -external floor cladding in white granite -waterproof insulation -screed base -concrete fill-in -steel sheet -plasterboard false ceiling 7.9 in. 05_HE steel beam 13.8 in. x 13.8 in. 06_Ventilated facade: -zinc-coated steel framework -superior modelled slat 196.8 in. x 57 in. x 38.2 in. -plain lightened slat 196.8 in. x 57 in. x 18.9 in. 07_Fixed window.

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_Irma Fanciullacci, Clarissa Guerrini, Samuela Hidri

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CONCEPT Neither walking around New York, you feel the presence of the sea as an attribute of the city and its inhabitants, there is no visual of it and the sea is not the implication of any images.

Lewis Mumford, Walking around New York, Writings on Architecture From the words of Lewis Mumford in his Walking around New York begins our journey that has, as a last stop the project of an arts center in the far south of the Roosevelt Island in New York City.

A design praxis whose center is the distance and difference, the concept of internal and external, of empty and full, of vertical and horizontal.

The study on the city has shown its characteristic development of gravity that led over the years to a move away from coastlines. The latter phenomenon that occurs in the visibly distinctive verticality of the city, famous for its unique skyline.

City made of conflicts, city of contrasts, a city which «excludes the sea from its descriptive parameters» as reported by Rem Koolhaas.

These characteristics have led us to deviate from the typical style of buildings in New York, trying to show up the primitive nature of the

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city . The concept of our work starts therefore from the need to reverse the movement “outdoor-indoor”, moving the full volumes towards the coast and leaving empty spaces inside.

This concept is empowered by the entry of the water into inner pools, that become true protagonists of the entire design.

The project thus shifts from landscape to waterfront and allows the latter to take its place, rediscovering the initial connection between the river and the city.

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LAYOUT The lot is crossed by numerous ways, among which only one is available for traffic and connects the South Point Park with the northern part of the island, togheter with two parallel paths, linked to the Four Freedoms Park as well.

In the middle of the site, one wide footpath runs parallel to the previous ones and it cuts through the park, opening a passage to the Small Pox Hospital, behind of which stands the white Khan’s architecture.

Finally, three routes allow crossing the island from the east to the west coast, providing a conflicting point of view of the East River and the Manhattan skyline.

At the outer perimeter of the park two buildings lodge the cultural center: the first lays parallel to the trend of the coast, while the other is actually a bridge between the east and the west bank.

The two buildings are connected by a square, which not only acts as a hub in the center, but it opens a view to the great monument that occupies the southern end of the island.

The first building lies placidly on the water, allowing only two connections to the land, which act both as entrances respectively for

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the museum and the library. The other building stands as a single volume in contrast to the large square rght in front of it, creating an open dialogue with the park and its water.

Cut into two parts by the great central hall, the building contains the auditorium, which provides a possible mooring for visitors from the water. The other part next to it s dedicates to the study center with attached guest quarters and offices with staff. The two bodies, apparently separated, are connected by a large covered space that allows the fluid movement from one to another.

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MATERIALS The exterior of these buildings consists basically of granite slabs and white by an outer coating of glass plates and an inner layer or translucent glass. Emerging from the surrounding park, the glass vertical plates seem to meet the sky, while the granite panels seem to be a projection of the antecedent monument of Khan. The facades are equipped entirely translucent insulation to create an effect of continuity with the past. These protrude to the structure of white granite, so that a narrow interstitial space wraps each pavilion. This architecture sails, making its way between apparent opposites: the structure of concrete and granite is heavy and opaque, while the glass is light and bright. It’s monolithic fatures is deliberately simple, and communicates an idea of stasis, while the interior flows are easily lit by large windows overlooking the park.

The translucent screen between the glass skins help it to repair the interior from the sun and improves the shadow outwards, creating a magic atmosphere, suspending time and space. The eye learns to distinguish different shades of white, the transition from the solid whiteness of granite to the pale glow of the glass, from the silence of the day to the reflected light of dusk, in a quiet setting that joins the city that never sleeps.

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01_concrete fill-in 0.27in. 02_mortar 0.27in. 03_concrete screed with welded 1.57in. 04_concrete lightened with polystyrene beads in slop 1.9in. 05_waterproof insulation 0.19in. 06_vapor barrier 0.19in. 07_concrete precast prestressed loft 13.8in. 08_White plaster. 09_aluminium Fixed window. 10_single layer of laminated glass. 11_ gangway welded to a horizontal resistance. 12_rod suspension white painted. 13_double layer of glass U-profile.

14_concrete 0.27in. 15_mortar 0.27in. 16_prestressed concrete (system passagges). 17_cupolex. 18_lean concrete. 19_pillar connection foundation-loft. 20_pile foundation.

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_Andrea Cristofaro, Luca Marrucci, Fabiana Pacchiarini harbour

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CONCEPT In ancient times the melting of glaciers from the north of the city caused a huge flood that slowly eroded the mountain range wich closed the New York Harbor . The colossal gash is still visible: it’s The Narrows. This strong connection between the city and the river is gradually fading.

We exploited the morphology of the site, Roosevelt Island , to remark this link, evoking it’s port city origins. We have planned a run of the ferry boats from the existing bus stop in Midtown , to the east side of our project area , in order to generate a path that circles the Kahn monument, paying a tribute to it. The mooring point to our island is a dock designed as the extension of the 52nd St of Manhattan, which becomes the main axis of the project.

Each volume and square of the project joins onto the main axis wich ends as a square Overlooking Manhattan. The axis is flanked and emphasized by buildings and squares of water , which make a continuous contact with the water , also in the interior island. Doing so we obtain two harbours: an harbor in the literal sense ,the one on the east side , characterized by the dock intended to accommodate the ferry , and an harbor that is conceptually

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expressed through the volumes of the buildings that stretches onto the river.

Towards Cornell University, to ensure a green view from the apartments of the students, the master plan includes a large, dense forest, that shields the project area. The visitors coming from the northern part of the island can perceive the presence of the project detecting the top of the mirador. A spacious lawn was designed towards the Four Freedom Park that introducing Kahn’s project. Both sites are marked by the presence of a single row of trees along the west bank that creates a barrier for those who see the area from Manhattan: a barrier that connects our project to Kahn’s.

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LAYOUT Roosevelt Island is an island between two opposing realities, Manhattan and Queens, which have different skylines. This diversity in heights is transposed to the project: arriving by ferry on the east bank, the first volume is the pier on the water surface. As we go into the heart of the project, heights increases, in order: the management, the logistics which gives information and a refreshment to visitors just arrived on the island, the auditorium until we reach the buildings that overlook the water.

These are the workshop, the library and the exhibition hall, from which the tower rises.

The tower recall the theme of the light house, therefore the port, but actually it’s a mirador, a viewpoint. The buildings’ entrances are along the main axist; it allows the visitors to have a complete and clear view of all the buildings and relate entrances. Two secondary routes reach the Roosevelt Memorial maintaining the accessibility to the other side of the islands.

All the facades are treated at the same way making the project uniform.

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MATERIALS The materials chosen are four, to better reflect the stratification of the city buildings. We mainly used the wood, in order to recall the harbor origins of this city; the exterior walls are characterized by thin strips of wood, skin of most all of the buildings and solar shading that allows a soft light to penetrate. We have also used concrete, which for its mass and strength, is the base of the timber walls has carved in the presence of the entrances. Steel and glass are also used, because they had always been the symbols of modern architecture in New York.

«Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!» cries she with silent lips. «Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore, send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!»

Emma Lazarus, The New Colossus, 1903.

The exhibition embodies the desire to bring out the collective European imagination about America, for long time seen as a golden door open to success and to progress. The building appears to be a base on which the highest volume of the complex rises: the Mirador. This

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is the end of the exhibition and climax of the museum: the room in the tower is dominated by a single large prospect, the view towards the Narrows, the entrance point of the bay, the link between the old world and the new world.

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1_ roof structure: flashing, layers sealing and barrier steamed screed slope, sliding layers, screed in the AC, beam perforated steel H, suspended ceilings plant in drywall. 2_ first floor structure: paving trated on glue, mat subflooring, screed in the AC Beam perforated steel H, suspended ceilings plant in drywall. 3_ ground floor structure: paving, screed door systems, screed armed, igloo, soil constipated. 4_ external ground floor structure: paving outer slabs of granite, and lean concrete wasps’ nest. 5_ facade structure: PVC frame, wood strips sliding. 6_ planv: internal wall a metal frame, wool insulation rock and coating slabs of plaster on the outside varnished.

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_Giulia Assunti, Giulia Ombrosini, Elisa Perego

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looks

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CONCEPT The MIE project grows out of the need to provide Roosevelt island with a cultural structure.

Such a structure should be able to give the area a novel arrangement capable of exploiting and strengthening its potentialities, without hindering its functions and needs. The preparatory phase of our project focused on the organization of city’s public spaces. We believe that these spaces are an important feature of the city, giving an answer to actual needs of the people. NY public places are characterized by different complexities but they all are interlinked by the common concept of freedom. Freedom of meeting, of speech, of expression, either individual and collective.

NY urban shape - with its neat grid of vertical buildings - is well described by city’s public spaces. They can be classified for their dimension: from Central Park, the biggest, to the small neigh borough parks, up to POPS or Vest Pocket Garden (250/300 square-meters gardens breaking the hectic NY life). These spaces have humble origins and can satisfy a small community’s needs of green and public areas. At first sight, it appears they have been raised by chance between buildings.

The project is located in South Park, a green area in the southern part of Roosevelt island.

We believe it is a very interesting location

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because of the relationship between Kahn’s Four Freedoms Park and the new structure.

We have also taken into consideration Kahn’s solutions regarding the skyline of the city. The monument has in fact a connection with Manhattan and Queens, such connection being stronger on the extremity of the island facing NY skyscrapers’ jungle. Another main feature of the project is related to the waterfront. Like Kahn’s, our project wants to facilitate and value the usability of the place as well as the view on East River. On the other hand, we have tried to find a connection with the skyline by orienting the pedestrian paths towards Roosevelt Monument. Therefore, the project hinges on the hypothetic line that connects the Four Freedoms Park to the rest of the island. This line orients the buildings so as to escape from the ordered grid but, at the same time, effectively connect to it by bypassing any obstacles obstructing the view and the panorama. A reference to the environment is underlined by the presence of several green spaces, which we have thought of as a hint to NY pocket gardens and parks.

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LAYOUT The structure consists of four main volumes linked by a square. An entrance path brings to the square and represents the ideal connection between today and the past. The square is on the northwest part of the island, near Kahn’s monument, and it is the key point of the whole project. The entries to the European Imaginary Museum face the square and are connected by arcades and paths. The project’s nature and vocation have brought us to pay particular attention to open spaces, paths, courts and gardens. The square has been deemed to be the junction of the two paths of the structure. The main one leads to the Four Freedoms Park, the other one is orthogonal and ideally connects the project to the East River.

There are two main parallel structures over the square: the exhibition center, with its extended shape and complex elevation profile, and the study and logistic center, split in two parts by a path. In front of these structures there is the Library Café that closes the square.

The buildings are massive and have large openings in the lowest part in order to grant a sort of connection between interior and external spaces. We have considered gardens as a milestone of our composition to recreate the atmosphere of Vest Pocket Gardens. In particular, inside the Exhibition Centre there is a

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green space having the same dimension of a pocket garden. This space on the one hand is an exhibition zone and, on the other hand, has some studied perspectives toward Manhattan. The building hosting the Library Cafe has also a two-levels court aimed at making the reading hall homely and relaxing so as to allow visitors to enjoy breathtaking view of Manhattan. The park is organized in such a manner as to underline the relationship with the environment. The park follows the buildings’ internal spaces division and it has seven gardens, each of them with particular varieties of trees and plants. In every internal space of workshop there are a side scene as protection and visual boundary of garden. As far as our project’s green areas are concerned, we have decided to use pomegranate, lavender, Judas tree and camellia in addition to maple and linden. The all system is organized in accordance with modules which divide both internal and external spaces. The proximity to Roosevelt monument as well as New York skyline have suggested height-balance profiles, in order to not contraste with the choice made as regards Four Freedoms Park.

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Architectural composition has been based on our wish to rise two contrasting but at the same time complementary emotions: on the one hand you may feel suggestions which cast you over the city, on the other hand inner gardens get you to take shelter in a cozy and people-oriented environment, totally forgetting metropolitan reality.

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MATERIALS The choice of materials is related to the wish to create a unitary project having a monumental character in harmony with the nature and the environment. Thinking to the main destination as MIE, we decided to exploit stony textures, non-intrusive colors and natural surfaces. The project involves thus the use of a few materials such as rock, concrete and glass. Among the various types of stones we chose a metamorphosed gneiss, with a slightly foliation, which is used in the project both for coating the vertical surfaces and paving the square. Its size is variable and regulated by well-defined modules that are adapted to the elevation profile of the entire project. The use of concrete occurs mainly in surface refinements. The concrete distinguishes the bottom of the arcades where it contrasts with the gneiss coating of the walls.

The overall effect gives rise to strong references to the European world, especially when compared with the skyline that surrounds the composition. The glass is primarily used in the buildings that face Manhattan: the exhibition center and the library cafĂŠ. The upper band of the museum is marked by the use of an opaque white glass that has the dual function of illuminating the exhibition hall on the first floor and, when dark, to become a blade light visible from the East River. The coating of the library facing Manhattan and part of the roof,

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are made entirely of glass, also as structural beams, in order to give to the visitors an immersive view of the city. In the environments that do not require direct light, it was decided to place vertical skylights facing north on the roof. This solution is adopted for exhibition center, the reading room of the library, the study center, and the lobby of the auditorium.

The entire structure is made of reinforced concrete, except, as mentioned above, part of the library and the exhibition center. Finally the large spans of some required the use of lattice structures. The view of Manhattan, mediated by a canopy that brings through a staircase to a panoramic viewpoint close to the water, is marked by the presence of dividing walls that lead the eye of the visitors.

00_foundations. 01_ground floor: prefabricated piles, crawl space made of iglĂş, concrete base with welded steel mesh, thermal insulation, sheet of polyethylene, floor screed, resin floor. 02_inner wall: plasterboard, septum in concrete, plasterboard. 03_glass facade with aluminium frames. 04_outer wall: septum in concrete, insulation coating with mineral based panels, granite coating. 05_floor on steel tray, white and opaque glass, plasterboard, reticular beam, corrugated sheet metal, concrete base with welded steel mesh, acoustic insulation, lightweight aggregate concrete, resin floor. 06_glass facade with aluminium frames. 07_coverting roof: plasterboard, reticular beam, corrugated sheet metal, concrete base with welded steel mesh, vapour barrie, thermal insulation, waterproof membrane, gravel.

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The sun sets on some retired meadow, where no house is visible, with all the glory and splendor that it lavishes on cities, and perchance as it has never set before,—where there is but a solitary marsh hawk to have his wings gilded by it, or only a musquash looks out from his cabin, and there is some little black-veined brook in the midst of the marsh, just beginning to meander, winding slowly round a decaying stump. We walked in so pure and bright a light, gilding the withered grass and leaves, so softly and serenely bright, I thought I had never bathed in such a golden flood, without a ripple or a murmur to it. The west side of every wood and rising ground gleamed like the boundary of Elysium, and the sun on our backs seemed like a gentle herdsman driving us home at evening.

So we saunter toward the Holy Land, till one day the sun shall shine more brightly than ever he has done, shall perchance shine into our minds and hearts, and light up our whole lives with a great awakening light, as warm and serene and golden as on a bankside in autumn.

Henry David Thoreau, Walking, 1851

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NOTE / ANNEX

ringraziamenti / acknowledgment

crediti / image credits

la redazione di questo breve fascicolo non sarebbe stata possibile senza l’attiva partecipazione di molte persone; un grazie va dunque:

Eugene de Salignac, Brooklyn Bridge, October 7, 1914, AP Photo New York City Municipal Archives, Department of Bridges, Plant & Structures; cover.

Martin Waldseemüller, Universalis cosmographia secundum Ptholomaei traditionem et Americi Vespucii alioru[m]que lustrationes, St. Dié, France?: s.n., 1507 (1 map on 12 sheets 128 x 233 cm., sheets 46 x 63 cm. or smaller); Library of Congress Geography and Map Division Washington, D.C. 20540-4650 USA dcu, Catalog Number: 2003626426; pp. 2-3.

Vesconte de Maggiolo, Map of the New York City Area, original 1527, facsimile 1905 (one sheet of four 19x24 inches each); Harvard Map Collection; p. 7.

Caroline Tisdall, Joseph Beuys Coyote; pp.

10-11.

J.H. Colton & Co., Topographical map of the city and county of New-York, and the adjacent country: with views in the border of the principal buildings, and interesting scenery of the island, Published by J.H. Colton & Co., 1836 (1 map on 3 sheets; 60 x 155 cm., sheets 79 x 60 cm., or smaller); Library of Congress Geography and Map Division Washington, D.C. 20540-4650 USA dcu, Catalog Number: 2007627512; pp. 16-17.

Gondolas in Central Park, New York, ca. 1900, Detroit Publishing Company Photograph Col-

ad Elizabeth Kamell - Syracuse University School of Architecture - per l’indispensabile e continua collaborazione e sostegno; agli architetti Antonio Acocella, Matteo Cecchi, Alessio Palandri e Plinio Vanni, tutors del laboratorio; a Susanna Cerri, Laboratorio Comunicazione e Immagine (DIDA) per le analisi ed i suggerimenti; agli architetti Eleonora Cecconi, Francesco Tioli e Francesco Algostino, Laboratorio modelli per l’architettura (DIDA), e Andrea Pasquali, Laboratorio fotografico (DIDA), per le pazienti consulenze ed assistenza nella realizzazione e documentazione dei modelli; agli architetti ed ex allievi Niccolò Brogelli, per averci concesso l’uso delle fotografie del suo soggiorno newyorkese, a Francesco Onorati Filippo Pecorai Francesco Polci e Fabio Semeraro per la documentazione video/fotografica della mostra Re-Thinking Louis I. Kahn, SESV, Santa Verdiana, febbraio 2014, Firenze; a Susan Scott per la traduzione dei capitoli introduttivi del presente catalogo; agli studenti del laboratorio per la loro passione, dedizione e desiderio intellettuale.

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bio lection, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA, Reproduction Number: LC-DIG-det-4a08744; p. 24.

Lionel Freedman, Louis I. Kahn looking at his tetrahedral ceiling in the Yale University Art Gallery, 1953, Yale University Art Gallery Archives Transfer; p. 39.

John Bachmann, Bird’s Eye View of New York and Environs, 1865, N[ew] Y[ork] Kimmel & Forster; Library of Congress Geography and Map Division Washington, D.C. 20540-4650 USA dcu, Catalog Number: 75693052; pp.

48-49.

Margaret Bourke-White, New York City, 1939 (“Life”, March 13 1939); p. 51.

Daniel J. Mueller, Saint Mary Lake, Glacier National Park, Montana, 2013; pp. 162-163.

Fabrizio F.V. Arrigoni, architetto, è dottore di ricerca in Progettazione Architettonica e Urbana. Professore associato presso il DIDA, Dipartimento di Architettura dell’Università degli Studi di Firenze, insegna Progettazione Architettonica nella Scuola di Architettura.

Nel 1996 ha aperto con Marco Arrigoni e Damiano Dinelli l’atelier Arrigoni architetti, alternando la pratica professionale alla riflessione teorica sui fondamenti della disciplina e sui processi materiali attraverso i quali l’opera trova compimento.

Fabrizio F.V. Arrigoni, architect, is a dottore di ricerca (Ph.D.) in architectural and urban design, and is an associate professor in the department of architecture (DIDA) at the University of Florence, where he teaches architectural design.

In 1996 he opened the architectural firm Arrigoni Architetti with Marco Arrigoni and Damiano Dinelli, alternating professional practice with theoretical reflection on the foundations of the discipline and the material processes by which the work is brought to completion. contact: fabrizio.arrigoni@unifi.it https:// sites.google.com/site/laboratorioarrigoni/home

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_ Florence, December 2014 Florence 2015

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