by Jacqueline Pezzillo Assoc. AIA LEED AP
Event: Public Art + Architecture New York
Location: Center for Architecture, 04.20.09
Speakers: Todd Schliemann, FAIA — Partner, Polshek Partnership; James Carpenter — Principal, James Carpenter Design Associates; David Thurm, Hon. AIANYS — Vice President for Operations, New York Times
Moderator: Jean Parker Phifer, FAIA — Author, Public Art New York (W.W. Norton & Co., 2009)
Organizers: Center for Architecture
Sponsor: Margaret Helfand Fund
Dichroic Light Field by James Carpenter.
Photography by Francis Dzikowski/Esto
“Public art can enhance one’s experience of a building or a space by heightening visual perceptions and by focusing the senses on elements such as light, texture, color, or sound,” says Jean Parker Phifer, FAIA, author of Public Art New York. The book captures many of New York’s recently completed buildings that integrate art installations with the aesthetic and function of the spaces they inhabit. These buildings broaden the dialogue on how art enhances and complements architecture and public space.
Todd Schliemann, FAIA, James Carpenter, and David Thurm, Hon. AIANYS — representing architect (Principal, Polshek Partnership), artist (James Carpenter Design Associates), and owner (Vice President for Operations, New York Times) respectively — echoed the sentiment that an early collaboration among all parties along with a shared approach to the building yields a successful union between art and architecture. Referring to the public art installation in Polshek’s New York Hall of Science, Schliemann said, “the closer architecture and art evolve hand-in-hand, the more they are in harmony.” Exemplary of such a marriage is “Moveable Type,” by artist Ben Rubin and statistician Mark Hansen — an installation in the Renzo Piano Building Workshop/FXFOWLE Architects’ New York Times Building lobby. Designed for the vista through The Times building, 560 small screens are suspended in a grid and display choreographed content from The Times database, pulling from both the paper’s memory and real time web commentary. It is an organic, evolving artwork with a specificity to place and program that is undeniable.
Similarly deliberate, Carpenter’s “Ice Falls” in the lobby of Foster + Partners’ Hearst Building creates an experiential reorganization of light. No stranger to atmosphere and perception, Carpenter devised a system of cast-glass prisms to illuminate the lobby and create a glittering reflection of the three-story fountain.
Jacqueline Pezzillo, LEED AP is the communications manager at Davis Brody Bond Aedas and a regular contributor to e-Oculus.