Posted Jun 6, 2012, 11:40 PM
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Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: Toronto
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Architectural Canopy Shines in Battery Park City
A Canopy as Social Cathedral
June 4, 2012
By MICHAEL KIMMELMAN
Read More: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/05/ar...?_r=4&ref=arts
Quote:
One of the best new works of architecture in New York isn’t a flashy skyscraper or museum but a fairly modest structure, an angular glass canopy over an obscure but busy pedestrian street called North End Way, in the shadow of One World Trade Center no less.
Designed by Preston Scott Cohen, the canopy covers 11,000 square feet of an easement in Battery Park City; effectively, North End Way is a north-south passageway or alley, lined with shops and restaurants. Part of what makes this a notable public space is the quality of construction: the granite sidewalk, the lighting, the stainless-steel and glass storefronts, the street furniture. Goldman Sachs, whose headquarters at 200 West Street backs onto North End Way, owns and developed the arcade, which is zoned for public use. But it’s the canopy, which Goldman also commissioned, that formally elevates what is really just a gap between two buildings into something almost as inspired as the nave of a great Gothic cathedral.
That’s the power of architecture. I’ve stopped by on different days, morning and evening. Cafe tables spill from the restaurants. Shake Shack anchors the north end of the arcade, at Murray Street, and it’s always packed with kids coming from the ball fields next door. Rogers Marvel, the New York firm, designed a striking wine shop, Vintry, all white and low, with sexy Jetsons curves. People also take breathers near Vesey Street on the granite bench by Ken Smith, who also came up with the low, lighted walls dividing the cafe tables from pedestrian traffic. But mostly everybody gawks at the canopy.
It is composed of three tilting, jagged triangles. Picture giant shards of glass. They filter light gracefully through enameled panes, the light shifting with the passing day. The longest triangle is Mr. Cohen’s big statement: It slices the arcade, which bends toward the south end, along the diagonal. That sweeping diagonal brings together what could otherwise be — precisely because North End Way isn’t straight — a disjointed space. Stretching the length of the easement, the diagonal provides counterpoint to the regular beat of the canopy’s steel ribbing and the modules of 200 West’s facade.
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