New York New York! High Line and New Museum

Every once in a while, I get to return to this quaint place known as New York City. I find it incredibly surprising that New York, with all its density, is always finding new ways to introduce new architectural projects. This time, I managed to visit and snap a few pictures of the High Line and the New Museum. They are both interesting places and are definitely worth it to swing by if you are in town. As always, clicking on the pictures delivers you to the flickr page where you can pick up the full res versions. More pictures and story after the break.



Seen here is one end of the High line, The other end is depicted in the first picture, where construction has not finished yet and is slated to go on for quite a while. The end depicted is on Gansevoort and Washington st. near the meat packing district. The competition winners who are in charge of designing this project are James Corner Field Operations (landscape) and Diller Scofidio + Renfro (architecture [a Rice favorite!]). The construction is only about one thirds done. To me, the High Line is like that show "the world after people" if everything went right. The juxtaposition of old railway lines and greenery gives an incredibly pleasant, if not a tad eerie feeling to the place.


It definitely isn't a tourist attraction. Most people probably won'ttravel it often unless they live in the immediate vicinity. However, it does have incredible potential to be come a pedestrian commercial street, but that would probably ruin all the grand views and weird feeling of being in a park up in the air. As always, there are more pictures than what is posted here available on flickr.


This is the new museum, designed by the recent Pritzker prize winning duo, SANAA. Unfortunately, photography is not allowed inside, so here is the iconic exterior. As one of the other contributers said in one of his posts, the architecture is a bit tongue in cheek and perhaps even humorous, especially with the "Hell, Yes" sign that is now synonymous with the museum. The building and the sign are just as odd and "modern" as the art inside. The interior contains high ceilings with blank white walls, allowing the art pieces to fight each other to dominate their space. The art inside is loud and offensive, in a very (I am modern art pay attention to me boobs and penises) modern kind of way. It's worth a gander but definitely not worth the ticket price, at least not to me. So bring you student IDs and enjoy.