The High Line, New York

Last month I attended a very provocative lecture under the name of:

The High Line, New York: Objet Trouve and Form as Provocation.

I wasn’t exactly aware of the High Line as an iconic park in New York until Andy, my Humanities lecturer, talked about it earlier that month. In the same month an experience lecture about the High Line took place however delivered by Dr. Raymond Lucas.  

in the past

in the present

From an architectural and anthropological perception we were taught about this controversial complex case study. The High Line is considered as a park to some but to others, like our professor Lucas, it is not but rather it is a metaphorical creation due to it’s lack of elements that make it a successful park.

Just to keep you aware that the High Line is a recent development to an abandoned railway. Many proposals were suggested to make use of this area rather than keeping it filled with rusted tracks and void.

All initiated proposals vary. One proposal is a huge roller coaster, others: a very narrow pool,  high raised buildings, a bridge etc.. proposed by profound architects like: Steven Holl, Zaha Hadid, Front Studio and other 4/5 architecture firms . Anyway, the winning proposal is the High Line park by Diller  Scofidio + Renfro with James Corner Field Operations.

As you can see, it is a narrow area and far from being considered a park in the first place. We are used to  low levelled wide scaled parks not high raised narrow park as the one opposed. These two points are  strong enough to make this project successful or a failure from architects point of view. Not only architects have the right to think of it in this way, but I mean also others like architecture students, citizens or people in general.

Dr. Lucas didn’t only shed the light on metaphors, modern arts, politics, form, ready mades and anti objects but also he led the audience to think about it from their own perspective. As much as he put in information he actually kept a lot of space for us to fill in with our thoughts and rhetorical questions.

Confusing us is definitely not the right phrase but he certainly created an intellectual maze. I mean, this lecture was seriously intellectually stimulating. Thank You Dr. Ray!

SIMA