Further site analyses;
Edges
Comfort zones
Discomfort
Nodes
Restaurants/cultural pockets
Layers
Built forms
Voids
More on exterior/surrounding city near the yard
Site visit Monday 9 am
I have also been in contact with the owners of the locomotive repair shops at the Reading Yard (the large building forming the northwest edge of the site) in an attempt to enter/analyze the facility.
More case studies:
More on Berlin Wall, Athena Tacha, Christo & Jeanne-Claude, use of space and schedule of installations at Grounds For Sculpture
Dia Beacon
Approximate site size is 200 acres, give or take...
I will print my writings to this point for whoever is interested as well.
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1 comment:
Adam-
I will not be able to participate in this Monday's meeting unfortunately, but I know the site visit is tomorrow...and it is so important, so much of the good vibes of your evolving proposal are dependent on making the greatest possible use of what you see, what you document, who you can get to know, and whether there are any drawing or site plan or photographic resourses.
Absolutely so, you are in a phase of "extended site research" (see my other comments posted just a few minutes ago) and what you discover about things easily predicted, things totally surprising, the raw tough gutsy rusted conditions of a great industrial world now in ruins, but also the surprisingly pleasant, green leafy, humanly scaled residential abutments are also part of the situation. And, my earlier posting suggested that 200 acres of any one use or expression is maybe too monochromatic for a poor grey city that could use sensory enrichments (on all levels).
But the other biggie in terms of research it to do a very good job defining and categorizing the really huge scale of art being created today (from paintings to ceramics, to jewelrymaking, to fabric art to photography) where artists are totally exceeding the volumetrics of even the biggest museum additions today (and that, frankly, is the motivation for the new Gehry proposal to reshape the hill and plaza and steps of the Phila Museum of Art- to accomodate this new scale). And, within that, to look at installations, installation art- those artists working so much in open plateaus and windswept meteor craters and alkaline lakes in the SouthWest (where such acreages are available and affordable)- can you guarantee, on the East Coast population centers where so much provocative art gets exhibited in museums, galleries and open sites, where so much of the critiquing and sale of cutting edge art occurs, that you have just the right site closeby. Can Reading offer artists the total freedom to explore bigger than anything they have yet done? Or might conceive of? This is the freedom and the attraction. And yes, indeed, there is the concomitant opportunities to round this out with support facilities- places to stay, to eat, to shop- that Reading can develop. and yes, the other historical museums can gravitate there to cash in on visitors and attendance (though they might not be able to make it exclusively on their own). But this unique art niche can drive the larger economic engine. And, if you read my other comments, it can be a flexible, adjustable vision- part of the attraction for an outsider coming back to Reading once a season, or once a year- is that there is an entirely new created environment to experience- to discuss, to bring ideas back home from to Phila or DC or NY. Otherwise, how many times can I visit the same old tired RR museum, or coal mining exhibit? There are outlet stores everywhere in the world anymore. Everyone has casinos. They can certainly round out a weekend stay, plus a Latino Religious procession or two...but you (and Reading) needs that unique fix. jp
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