Introduction
These are the notes of a dream fulfilled after many years. Finally awaited day arrived and after multiple finishes and endless recommendations to our children got into remis bound Ezeiza. We started about three o'clock in the afternoon of Thursday, 1 October 2009.
is not my intention to make a neat phone, but simply to record my impressions were taken and recorded in three blocks of white sheets to be dumped after the higher order always brings digital. My little memory is supported in these notes, in the countless photos you took my wife and of course the prodigious technical means now assist us to try to recover, and often enlarge the experience.
I doubt that this effort reconstruction will not know how, have some utility, but I consider this a good way to expand and deepen the experience. I also hope to bear fruit in terms of set and clear the memories so that they can become for me a learning material. If after someone serves in general or in some specific areas, is welcome, but said that this is not the purpose of these columns. This is not a guide.
After a smooth trip and some delays we arrived at JFK airport early in the morning and crossed the dreaded stop migration without any problems. After a brief investigation, we decided to take a bus that dropped us off at the Grand Station, near Diplomat 210, at 47th St. between 3rd and 2nd Avenue, what would be our home for the next eleven days.
We take a few minutes to accommodate prisoners of anxiety we capitalize on our first traveled. Map, camera, guides, notebook, wallet, cap, coat just in case. Here we go.
Day 01 (Friday): GREENWICH VILLAGE / Morgan Library
The first stop was the Chrysler Building, the 42nd St., which initially seemed consistent. Enter the triangular-shaped hall, filled with art deco details, especially the excellent wall lamps. Also the detail of the walls with cuts to 45 degrees, indirectly illuminated. The hall is a dark environment where the predominant red marble very rich opaque it takes. Art Deco is always severe.
Chrysler
The hall is a building that celebrates itself. Frescoed ceilings and walls tell their own story. In the ceiling draws the facade, whose epic boom coincides with the axis of the hall and ends just in coincidence with the gateway. The axes are always evocative power. The access bay has a characteristic shape, which is like a Gothic simplified. The art deco is like a will that is imposed on other styles, a sort of rigor that subjects the romance, which the Gothic is here a representative outdated.
The exterior of the building, at least in the basement floor is clad in what looks like gray bricks. Are prepared without accusing the interlock as a skin after you lose every vestige of structure. In the middle of the panels are drawings of plaster with the edge. Brick is, at least for me, an unexpected guest.
are also the mythical gargoyles which emulates a gothic made of silver and more automakers are reminiscent of that architecture. The Gargoyles do not seem to match very well with the body of the building. In fact, establishing a distant and rather weak connection to the prodigious shot, without a doubt one of the most famous in the world.
The force of the shot is always present in the city, which appears unexpectedly in a while, their iconic power to "eat" the rest of the building. The effect that the building is in our memory a more metal than it actually is. Or at least what I had imagined.
After a long journey, which crossed the district of "Little India" dominated the turbans, arrived at the Gramercy intimate Park. It's a strange private park, an urban truly contradictory in a city where what prevails is precisely the public. A fenced park like many others but closed with keys that only have the owners of buildings that surround it. An experiment which I think has the charm of the weird, but that does not occur to me to propose as a model.
The vegetation is maintained and more natural style. Is almost empty, only a few people pass by quiet trails. Here we see with sympathy the first squirrels, which then eventually become a pest. The space is clearly a square surrounded by public streets. The streets are called all Gramercy with the addition of the cardinal point on which they are located. Nothing but the locks, the news gives you privacy.
buildings surrounding the park are a variety that anyway do not lose consistency in the set. There on the east side of a building in a very ornate Gothic is striking. Also at the corner of Lexington Avenue and the north side of a hotel, most famous for its illustrious guests for its architecture. The whole atmosphere highlights the great tranquility, as if the city had taken a break. Oasis, they say.
Somewhat later we find ourselves in a real change with vital node of the city, Union Square . It is very populated and is on the southern edge that gives a dry place opposite a major shopping area. The building closed "Virgin" displays to the time of the recording industry. It's like seeing the ruins of an ancient temple of the soon to be forgotten its purpose.
I high while Mary goes to investigate the local huge "Forever 21". I accompanied a nice jazz band (piano, bass, sax, drums) which is excellent and gives me courage to do my first entries. It is for me impossible to know if someone touches it jazz or not, because fully know the basic lines of this style, elusive to my ears. On the east side of the square stands a brick building that vaguely remind me Quartier Demaria (my "first towers", which I somehow being here today). They have some shots in a pyramid, but purely formal. Modestly, I prefer ours.
After the brief rest followed by the 4th Ave, to Astor Place, space rather bland, but a memorial of some fairly insignificant event as protests of hippies and homosexuals in the '60s. On the south side is the Cooper House, the historic building where Lincoln delivered his famous antislavery speech that led to the Civil War. The coated building in a beautiful pale red stone is severe and classical forms but flat. In the middle of the square is a sculpture called "The Alamo", a cube resting on one corner you can turn with little effort. On the plaza
agree with the likely departure of a school for high society. The situation creates chaos that is identical to what occurs in our latitudes. The school is called Grace Church and corresponds to the same complex of the same name and important church in the same block to the west. This I found out later from a distance and the church was for visiting us.
The output of the school shows a feature not surprising known. I mean the racial diversity that prevails particularly in the area. Is evident primarily among the children who live with natural sound that is beyond his years. Not bad as an evolution of a society that had problems with racism until relatively recently.
A first impression that will only be confirmed with the passage of days is that this is a city that while there is majority Asian, which seems destined to be soon. A destination that may touch the world. Not only prevail in the amount for the assessment of which plays into the fact that we put in the same category to all Asians of different origin, Korea, Japan, China, Vietnam, etc. Also remarkable for their natural elegance that sets out a cultural level that stands out. This becomes most evident among young people and in areas close to universities like this where we are.
Another side of the square, east, is dominated by the giant Kmart, which is an important building to be built on a foundation with good detail and a classic cornice reminiscent of the first Italian Renaissance palaces.
we turn right to the west in the direction of Washington Square , as we see the large number of buildings dedicated to housing the New York University (NYU) and also crossed waves of students who give the neighborhood the particular profile, from which it draws its fame, a mixture of youth and bohemia.
The park which is entered through one of its sides is wide and shaded landscaped areas with tables and places to be, among those that stand chess boards. It was recently renovated in 2007 and many disputes and work not yet completed. The center is occupied by a dry place where the massive power and round on the north side, on axis with the 5 th Avenue, appears very neoclassical arch in memory of George Washington. It is solemn, but is graceless and also large enough to impose their presence.
emphasizes intensive use is made of green spaces. There are some modern banks around the fountain to allow a wide application beyond sitting, and there are other more classic alongside the trails. In one of them sat down to lunch (chicken burger and fries) and observe the environment for other moved, especially by young people and some school children to visit the place. Many couples of different races well and others that seem boldly assembled. In the famous "movida" based on users and homosexuals do not see anything.
not resist the temptation to enter a strange building located on the side NYU SO across the square. Is externally coated with a reddish stone treated rustica (fiamatado type, but very thin) and has an imposing appearance of a closed block. Inside is a central courtyard covered over 12 floors, with a very unique resolution of stairs. Then I learned that this is the main library known as the NYU Bobst Library , work no less than Phillip Johnson. Unfortunately I could not pass the entrance hall, but that was enough to give me an idea of \u200b\u200bthe place. The drawing of the flat is quite baroque and reminds me that of S. Ivo alla Sapienza in Borromini (Roma).
After this we headed to our surprise next point of interest, the Silver Towers of another giant, in this case IM Pei. Before arriving we went through a series of highly significant buildings. Plates of about 8 / 10 stories high and 200 meters long. Monoblocks species, clad in white brick with some interesting touches of color that break the monotony. They become bridges to pass under the streets and under the same resolve with simple access. In the middle, well-kept gardens.
The complex of three buildings that make up the Silver Towers stands out for its forcefulness. Several elements characterize and give monumental appearance. First, the location in the plane where the three identical volumes are placed slightly off resulting in the central plaza containing a sculpture no less than Picasso . Also emphasizes the use of virtually a single material and a single color, which distinguishes dry place with respect to the green areas that surround it. An extensive bank-monolithic wall closes the square on the north side.
The depth of the windows gives the building an appearance of remarkable and at the same time detracts. Excellent ratio of the opening with a ledge that divides the same thickness. There is no foreign element outside the concrete or iron railings or anything. The window panels are combined with other blind slightly removed with the building has its moments of calm. These are located asymmetrically with respect to the grid which gives the set some momentum, without losing her natural forcefulness.
The descent to earth is simple because all its elements vertical drop to the floor, forming a frame, no marquee or any other element that emphasizes access. Only the columns are gently contoured to a point, to give more elegance to the support, preventing it from being a mechanic. He found are of a simple absolute, determined with the same simplicity of the building. There is much to learn from the Chinese giant is not afraid of the monotony and is confident and precise measured the effect of its resources.
The rest of the day we left to tour the Greenwich Village, one of the most typical of the city. We wanted to intentionally fail to start with the city of giant scale and vertigo. So we decided to try this district for controlled residential style and its renowned bohemian. For it to boot from the major shopping area that occurs at the intersection of Houston Avenue and West Broadway. Unfortunately we went without seeing the famous local Prada Rem Koolhaas, but at least we saw the Adidas commercial design prodigy Studios. The exterior resolves in a gentle curve with a stylish remote plane that emerges from it.
From there we began the walk through the Bleecker St., one of the emblematic streets of the neighborhood, and we were getting into some side full of character. The atmosphere changes very abruptly from the high density commercial to low and purely residential blocks with a calmness and outstanding quality.
The importance of the English garden city solution that provides additional value to the pedestrian level, which, moreover, is repeated throughout the city but in this part is particularly effective. Is a solution that gives poise and a "landing" Soft to the building in relation to the street. Excellence in high-access, reminiscent of "Palladian" flavored "piano nobile", and softness in the rail yard. A set of levels that also allows the passage from public to private is complex and therefore have greater wealth. A portent of one of the most important issues proposed by this city, which is perhaps its formulation here first.
There is a persistent presence of water tanks in the shape of small silos, so typical of Hooper's paintings, which seem of a material are notoriously uncertain and poetic.
The district maintains a character homogeneous and maintains a climate that fails to be tourist in front of everything. There are subtle variations in the architecture that will bring diversity, as people, usually young and disparate provenance, which form the characteristic weather that comes your reputation.
The walk continues to surprise us in a totally different neighborhood, who promptly discovered how the highly publicized Meatpacking District. Still read the traces of development pressure to create a new pole of attraction, no doubt, is on the right track.
His property, in contrast to previously visited the neighborhood, is that the premises are enormous. These take advantage of the old warehouses of refrigerators that operated until recently and remain high on the road verges, which gives everything a unique appearance. There is a profusion of restaurants of many covered and prices of our chances away. There is care in the facades facing uncertain material and worked well outdoors but rather cold, where the design can not hide its desire to effect change.
cutting the Village is also felt in the wide, cobbled streets, and the distant presence of the Hudson, with a final shining light in the background. The atmosphere blurs the edges, as if to escape the weather, could not be completely shut, especially when approaching the 9th Ave and 14 st. There is a very interesting building remodeled by the study rightly Cook + Fox. A black volume, with vertical slits outdated (which seems to be the "motive" of the moment) arises retired on an old yellow brick volume, but re-emerged boldly edged in one of the side walls.
walked again for the 15 St. to Union Square to take the metro. They perform the complicated operation to remove the MTA (single card for bus and subway transport) on a machine that fortunately "speak" English. With fear of being devoured our dollars, finally get the passes, which would be so helpful throughout our stay and undertake the path toward the ultimate destination of the day, the Morgan Library .
arrived late at night to income from Madison Avenue and 35th st. More than these buildings contain one of the most important collection of ancient books in the world, we are interested in remodeling undertaken by Renzo Piano and inaugurated in 2005. The quality of the intervention is indeed magnificent, and on the other hand was expected of one who is in my humble opinion the greatest architect of today.
intervention consisted Piano inserting your building, a luxury box of glass and white aluminum between the two old buildings, original works of McKim, Mead & White . What stands out is the way in which this operation is carried out with exquisite precision, not making any kind of tolerance between new and old. That is, the new building is an exact shoe from those available volumes, without saying any kind including Buna, or retreat, built-as if it were a precise piece of machinery. The amazing thing about all this is that, despite this decision might seem aggressive, such is the subtlety of the part made by the architect Genoese respect for what exists is still up.
The composition of the work is based on extremely rigorous in the details that are repeated and reflected in the different parts, and an economy in the use of material and color as well, always strictly white, except the warm appearances pieces of natural wood beauty. The building also uses the action of the overlying skin of different materials, but formally unified by color and by the resolutions of elaborate details of exemplary simplicity.
Within the large room where there are other children evidenced a sensitivity finished, such as the elevator that appears to be part the same building and not an adjunct, as often happens, the suspended staircase reminiscent "Laurentian", by the way bursts in space, the bold and ethereal glass railings and parapets, and many other solutions.
The main space, which is reached after a rich wood hall, combines several different heights to give a grace that is far from mechanical and which articulate the different situations and establishing relationships with existing and the garden fund that is evident. Deserves a chapter of the small auditorium, with thick wooden plates unpublished but slightly curved in the manner of the famous shells of Rome halls designed by the same Piano, whose motive seems to take but in miniature.
Interestingly, in a review of the project is done in the same building, known as the Piano intervention changed the access to the historic building, moving on Madison Avenue, where now, and first had to overcome resistance This match, which went against what was already an established usage. Viewing the work done, I think no one can doubt its wisdom.
In the middle of the central space, a trio plays classical works. I recognize with joy a Mozart melody. Stroll through the old buildings and spaces, which are examples of a power and wealth of overwhelming strength. Upholstered Library volumes and tables to celebrate the family Morgan, creator of one of the financial empires, I do not know if now can be described as indestructible, but at least that was his fame for more than a century.
close with a sample of manuscripts, telegrams, cards, original drawings and sketches related to the works of Puccini, a good way to end our first day. When you find a Puccini, always feels a little like home.
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