miss representation

It seems New York really is the ‘can-do’ town that every seems to imagine we are. Sure, after ten years we still can’t seem to Penn Station on track, and Governor’s Island languishes while we remain starved for green space, but we did redesign two of the largest pending projects in the area in under a week. First it was the Freedom Tower going from hopeless to fearless in seven days (well, it was end of the semester), and now the Olympic Dream went from “No Plan B” to “Queens 2012″ almost overnight.

The Times has a nice piece on the Borough of Sloppy Seconds, and everyone seems to relish the pouty air Bloomberg has been wearing all week. It’s a shame he’s suffered from bunker mentality these past few months, because it undermines his (perhaps misguided) quest for Olympic glory, and it has certainly hindered the possibility of rational planning both here at the center of the universe and out in the hinterlands.

The plan, if you missed it, and you have, since it involved both Queens and the Mets, is a retread of the Atlanta Plan: build a baseball stadium, and piggy-back on some Olympic doodaddery. In Atlanta, it was all fresh and then they tore it down to make way for Chipper Jones and Buckhead racists. This time Fred Wilpon & Co. — who are going to actually spend money — will use the stadium for a couple of seasons before vacating for the 2012 season to accommodate the Olympics.

Avoiding for a moment the fact that any Olympics on this continent over the past three decades have either been a boondoggle or dust bowl bland, and Mike-Mike’s nose holding presentation of the concept, it should be noted that there are interesting and valid reasons for a Queen’s-centric Olympiad.

The most obvious is the incredible diversity of the borough, a fact unnoticed in any significant way until John Cracker of the Atlanta Braves opened his mouth. It can be reasonably argued that Queens is the most diverse agglomeration of cultures over a compressed time frame (say a little more than a century) of any significant scale ever. This creates myriad opportunities for a borough-wide approach to integrating the games and the attendant visitors. It is impractical to salt the entire area with mini villages, but the need for other forms of itinerant housing (USOC and IOC reps, media, and games visitors) and support services could prompt development nodes along the 7 line.

Logistically it makes sense as well. The 7 line provides an easy link between Manhattan and Queens, and the distribution of culture and event will be easily managed. Though the Olympics is a big event, the numbers won’t stress the transit system. And sporting events are largely inward focusing events that don’t engage communities. When people want to eat or find other entertainment, it can be far removed from the venues. There isn’t a surfeit of space in Queens, but many of the extant venues being considered for reuse or new construction are there, as is the proposed Village.

Lastly, the community there is likely more enthusiastic at the prospect of a large, diverse sporting event. The lifeblood of soccer in this city is not Manhattan. Our baseball teams aren’t located here. Except for perhaps softball or running and cycling (or any other ‘fitness’ associated sport), the centers of interest will be in the outer boroughs. Rather than face a bunch of sniveling hipsters and dismissive dowagers, our Olympic guests can be treated to rude and embittered outer borough types. It will be a far more accurate experience of the prototypical New Yorker.

And given the continued hubris of the IOC in the face of a declining relevance and fading imperial inability to respond to the massive change globalization has wrought, we shouldn’t be turning so many cartwheels to please them. We can get a damn stadium built, and even if our opening ceremony is in Staten Island, they should feel privileged to select us as host city. Maybe it isn’t that Queens is good enough for the Olympics, but the Olympics aren’t good enough for Manhattan.

The slapdash manner in which this alternate plan was presented does create some questions: given the EDC just closed a round of RFEI’s for Willets Point, will this mean that the firms that submitted are given advanced consideration, or is their work simply discarded as the city looks for new development partners (which also raises a heretofore mostly quiet issue: how is all this development being distributed)? The Mets claim they are committed (and to HOK, of course) either way, so their role in the wider development is limited.

The Willets Point development isn’t crucial, but if it isn’t done, they will have to erect a rather large wall to hide it. Take a look at the map: leaving this lie is passing on a key opportunity. Assuming it moves forward, what about infrastructure improvements for the 7 station? The relocated stadium will be further from the station, which could stand a substantial upgrade for any number of reasons, not the least of which will its role as the preeminent access point for the Olympic stadium.

In the end, I’m skeptical about the Olympics in general. Or at least the continued effort to host them in the largest urban areas. Spectacle does seem to provide a focus and occassionally is viable as legitimate economic development. But the Olympics seem best suited for emerging economies or regional centers (Atlanta was actually a good host site, but unfortunately is the blandest large city in this country), and, in this country at least, the lack of adequate regional planning makes their impact more expensive and unwieldy with each passing year. So the tepid enthusiasm likely won’t play very well with the vestigial aristocrats at the IOC, but if it all goes as planned and we do become friends of friends of strangers, or whatever that campaign is promising, but don’t like the results, we can simply continue our practice of ignoring Queens with little visible impact.

These days, you just aren’t a playa unless you are renovating. Can anyone name a museum in this town that isn’t undergoing, or just completing, an expansion of some kind? Last week, the Museum of the Moving Image got on the bandwagon, presenting initial sketches of their renovation courtesy of Leeser Architects (don’t go to Leeser’s site with high expectations — it’s under a lot of construction, apparently).

And what did I say about about cool, sexy late modernism? Cuz it’s more of the same here — not that there’s anything wrong with that. Clearly, in the burgeoning East Coast/West Coast scene, Cali-style is on the outs. And don’t forget they’re already making apologies for the Gehry theater (“but it’s hard putting two theaters on top of each other! And we haven’t even come up with a new metal cladding system that is untested and will require expensive maintenance for decades, yet!”). Can’t find the link for that one, but if anyone still has it, I’d welcome the hookup (my recollection is that it was from mid-January, and in the Times).

No one else seemed to have picked this up (trans: an eight-second Google search turned up nothing), but last week, the Architect’s Newspaper reported that Eric Owen Moss had been dismissed as designer of the Queens Museum expansion. Moss was pretty vituperative in his response, saying, in part, that Tom Finkelpearl, the executive director of the QMA, was a hypocrite. When a high profile architect is dismissed, the tendency to close ranks (particularly in professional journals) is strong, and this is the case in the write-up, though perhaps this is because of the rather tepid statement from Finkelpearl that “things weren’t working out.” Dude, just tell him you’re dating someone else.

The lack of detail makes it difficult to conclude if it was a high-handed rising star being too difficult, or a bitter leader from the poor relations of the museum scene in New York trying to rule with an iron fist. As glib as that might be, it would be instructive to find out exactly why everything soured, since client relations are the real grease upon which any successful design turns. Big-name designers use intimidation and reputation, and those on the rise strive to be conciliatory, albeit tactically. But knowing how to do both with grace makes all the difference, and no one ever teaches that.

Concerns that this might sully the introduction of the city’s Design Excellence program (of which this was the first major project) are likely overstated. After all, the prequalified firms in the program include Arquitectonica, a firm that hasn’t had an original idea since Miami Vice went off the air (and even then, they were questionable ideas), a creative bankruptcy that has saddled the city with the Times Square Westin and Avalon Chrystie Place.

The QMA is cagey about the future of the approved Moss concept. Well, not really — Finkelpearl thinks keeping the schematic plan of an atrium would be respecting Moss’s contribution. If one was prone to unfounded speculation, and I’m very much about that, I’d say the unveiling of MoMA, as well as the plans being floated for both MAD and the Whitney, make the lil’ QMA a bit jealous of all that hard-edged Late Modernism. And even though Moss presented a veritable zoo of undulating glazing, it would never produce the frisson of Tanaguchi’s braggadocio in demanding even more money so that he could make the architecture disappear (too bad he couldn’t make the drywall contractor disappear, but that’s a story for another day).

I’m perhaps a little bit of a sucker for that too, so I don’t feel so bad they sent Moss packing. Let’s hope that Gluckman Mayner, the town bike for the Whitney board, gets a crack at this.

Following up with plan to bail on downtown, Citigroup unveiled plans for a new building across the street from its Queen’s Plaza location, the Daily News reports. A Citigroup flack notes “We have our single largest, most profitable business – our credit card business – headquartered right here.” (flack? well, okay, president).

No one is credited with the design and it’s just as well. If the photo is any indication, it will be as bad as everything else Citigroup has done. Hell, they probably only merged with Travelers because their headquarters was as appreciably unattractive as the sore thumb out there in Queens. They should walk down the street and check out what MetLife has done. It’s not much more than standard fare contract interior on the inside, but the exterior isn’t a blight on the skyline either.

It’s a press release about the opening of a new addition. Er, no, it’s a press release about an exhibition opening that will run briefly and then will really open when the addition is actually finished. Yet all of this won’t take place until November, and it’s in Queens, so you can forget all about it.

Anyway, that’s what happens when the Daily News mangles the message of New York Hall of Science. That, or the NYHS needs to review their press relations skills. There’s a nice big rendering of (actually, the previous page, and it will be gone tomorrow) what you can expect come November. Looking at it, one can’t tell what comprises the addition, though the tower that rises out of the center is similar to ‘organic’ mess rising over Astor Place (though there and here, it’s just latent moderist yearning). In rendering form, it’s pretty undistinguished ‘Interactive Learning Center’ fare — attempted ‘sculptural’ forms defining major spaces, sorta moderist detailing that is supposed to convey a technocratic aesthetic. Like EPCOT, or, um, the New York World’s Fair. So at least it’s respecting the vernacular.

Inside, aside from the baseball exhibit, you can see the Conference Bike, “the world’s first circular bicycle — a tricycle built for seven people sitting in a circle by artist/designer/inventor Eric Staller.” Eric Staller is best known for the Lightmobile, a VW Beetle covered in lights. The bike is intended to promote peace, though the promotional image on his site just makes me want to hate people I don’t know. Even more.

(alternative title: Do you think ROTOndi is pissed yet?) NYC2012 went all patriotic, but not local, picking Morphosis as the architect for the Olympic Village, dissing locals Henry Smith-Miller and Laurie Hawinkson (you’d be inclinded to say, ‘Hey, kids, brighten up the renderings!’ but that doesn’t seem to be a lesson Thom Mayne has ever learned). Unfortunately, they haven’t updated the site to showcase the winner. ‘The Olympic X’ flash movie shows some generic Pelli-ish space planning diagram for Olympic Village (though there is a slide show here — via Archinect). Maybe the whole high-design thing is a dog and pony show (and don’t discount the suspicion; Atlanta made a lot of noise about art and design and look what that produced). We will wait patiently for the brooding, zooty renderings with copper highlights (and the signed contract) from the Bard of LA, before we offer our huzzahs to visionary design.

I’ve never understood the naming strategy behind Queens West. Unlike, say, the supercilious East Willamsburg, trying to inflate the brand value of your location by explicitly associating with one of the less desirable part of the city stikes me as counterintuitive. Why not try Manhattan East?

Anyway, some NJ Real Estate developer is huckstering what will be another anonymous and bland mega complex with ‘amenities’ (read: a treadmill in a closet and some concrete planters) to sit just south of Queens West. Jay Valgora, from the obliquely named V Studio, gets some face time in the write up (finally, after leaving Rockwell eight years ago in a snit over a lack of recoginition). The V Studio is brought to you by WPP, via the WalkerGroup. There’s really no point to mentioning that, but since it’s a bland article about a bland project that even the firm designing it can’t be troubled to post an image of, I’ve got to mention something. People will have to stare at the dung pile for generations. Like a professor used to say, architects should be required to put their name on their work. Right out in front. Sure, it might seem vainglorious at first, but think about it. For decades, as people gaze with disfavor on this project, they might wonder, ‘Who did this?’ And it could be right there: Jay Valgora is his name, ladies and gentleman.

*Can’t find a script to provide the full ref, so go rent it.