Category: Design

The Whitney takes a look at New York City foreclosures

“Never let a good crisis go to waste.” Chicago’s new mayor Rahm Emanuel’s words seem to have captured the spirit of the times, especially among planning and policy wonks. With the foreclosure crisis reeking havoc on communities across the country, not to mention the national economy, policies promoting homeownership are beginning to be questioned.

This Saturday, the Whitney Museum is bringing together an interdisciplinary panel of speakers to discuss these new challenges and the opportunities they present at a new exhibit Foreclosure: Crisis or Possibility. None other than Columbia’s Peter Marcuse will be on the panel, joined by New School Professor of art and design Radhika Subramaniam, Architect Damon Rich and artist Tania Bruguera to discuss:

How does the current economic crisis reconfigure urban space, specifically in New York City? How do contemporary artistic and urban practices engage with and impact the social imaginary of the city? Bringing together the disciplines of urban planning and design with artistic and curatorial practices, this platform considers the city as a stage of conflict, desire, and imagination.

What: City as Stage: A Conversation with Tania Bruguera, Peter Marcuse, Damon Rich, and Radhika Subramaniam
When:
Saturday, June 11th @3pm
Where:
The Kitchen, 512 W 19th Street (not at the Whitney!)
How Much:
Free
Website:
The Whitney Museum

In early February, Paris-born planning student Charles Perrault began his first assignment for an urban digital design class. Charles decided to overlay his native city’s maze of streets onto Manhattan’s rigid grid. The image caught the eye of fellow planner Michelle Young, who posted the image to her blog Untapped New York. In a few hours, the image had gone viral — AM New York published Charles’ Manhattan in the next morning’s paper.

URBAN caught up with Charles and Michelle to hear their thoughts on the experience.

URBAN: Charles, what gave you the idea for your image?

Charles: Well there was no particular concept behind this. It was like…the grid for me is shocking. But for most American people, I think it is a given. They don’t think about it. But for me, it is not obvious, it is not normal. I wanted to challenge that.

URBAN: What kind of an effect do you think the grid iron street pattern has on New Yorkers?

Charles: Well, a type of public space—a street space—changes a lot. When you have a grid, you have to always be moving, you can’t stop to breathe. In New York, you don’t want to stay on the sidewalk, and I think [the grid] is part of the explanation.

Michelle: I think maybe that’s what creates New York as a city of movement. You are always going from one place to another and that says a lot not only about the city but New Yorkers.

URBAN: Michelle, what grabbed your attention about Charles’ image?

Michelle: I saw it and immediately knew I wanted to write about it. I think New Yorkers are always interested in these quirky—what I would call quirky—topics.

URBAN: What are some differences between Paris and New York that you might relate to the street pattern?

Michelle: I’ve lived in both cities and I think when you explore Paris, there’s a real sense of discovery in a different way. It revolves around the idea of getting lost. I think everywhere I went, I would always get lost at least once. Parisians get lost.

Charles: Oh yeah, I used to get lost.

Michelle: Whereas in New York, the sense of discovery…how do I explain. It’s more like the contrast within a street block. You get the skinny building that’s left over and then you get the huge highrise. It’s that chaos of the city that you discover.

Charles: Yes, in New York when you go from one street to another, the contrast is sometimes very striking. The proximity and the contrasts are less so in Paris.

URBAN: Charles, could this image have anything to do with you feeling a little homesick?

Charles: Yeah, maybe homesickness. Or French arrogance (laughing).

by Jake Schabas

In late February, hundreds of lawyers, architects, planners, and marketers descended on the New York Bar Association for a “Discussion at the Intersection of Marketing, Design, Planning and Law.” It was a diverse group to be sure, and I found myself somewhat uncomfortably among them.

Panelists included Shake Shack’s CEO, a Columbia business professor, the creative director of architecture firm Gensler, a Washington University law professor, a Columbia-bred planner, and the eccentric principal of the Frederic Schwartz design firm. Moderated by a self-admittedly design-handicapped attorney, the dialogue was animated, if not entirely civil.

At the core of the meeting was the question: can buildings be branded? According to U.S. trademark law, the short answer is yes. Companies have been exploiting their built spaces, particularly retail spaces, as branding vehicles for as long as brands have existed. McDonalds’ iconic golden arch drive-thru and Disney’s fabled Main Street USA have cemented those brands into our collective consciousness.

Branded spaces are consistent, distinct, and compelling. They ensure that we know exactly where we are, and they are a valuable component of the comprehensive, multisensory experience of consuming. But a building is infinitely more complex than a logo and things can get messy when one architect’s peerless vision is public domain for another.

Just such a disagreement erupted in the discussion when Mr. Schwartz’s vertical bamboo motif for clothing retailer Aéropostale was deemed not distinct enough to be protected by trademark law. But Gensler’s John Bricker said he just laughed when he discovered that a candy store in Dubai had shamelessly ripped off several elements of his design for Dylan’s Candy Bar, the famous New York shop. Imitation, after all, is the highest form of flattery.

Corporate marketers and trademark lawyers everywhere are watching closely to see if the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office grants Apple its application to trademark the famously minimalist aesthetic of its stores. The approval would come as a surprise to many; despite being the reigning tastemaker of American product design, Apple’s store design is rather generic. While Apple, like many retailers, tends to keep its store design consistent in each location, who is to say that the ubiquitous steel and wood classroom-like interior is truly unique to Apple?

But buildings as brands run counter to one of architecture’s fundamental tenets: that a building be a product of its environment. How can a building respect its context if corporate policy mandates that it look like every other store’s layout and design? In the same vein, brand consistency writ large translates into dull repetitiveness in the urban environment. Today’s city dwellers are unlikely to blink at the sight of another Starbucks or McDonalds. New Yorkers like to complain that the city’s unique abundance of locally-owned shops is giving way to a slew of the national chain stores more common in the suburbs.

Questions of real estate and price competition aside, national chain stores do make city streets less exciting spaces to inhabit. But branded environments are not the exclusive realm of global corporations. Pressure to compete with the big guys and increasing access to creative resources and technologies have allowed many small business owners to craft clever identities for their spaces.

Neither are global corporations necessarily averse to experimenting with and diversifying their architectural languages. Some long-established brands are beginning to recognize the value in differentiation. New York City, ever the epicenter of consumption, is the new home of Nike’s SoHo “atelier” and Toys R Us’ marquee-wrapped Times Square flagship. These not-so-subtle appropriations of place may further commercialize the city, but they might also add to its distinctly capitalist character. With the U.S. Patent Office acting as judge, at least we know the fate of the city is in good hands.

By Alexander McQuilkin

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