Business
& Labor
Q & A with Zoë Ryan, Senior Curator of the Van Alen
Institute
(archrecord.construction.com - 09/13/2006)
“The
Good Life: New Public Spaces for Recreation”,
is the Van Alen Institute’s latest exhibition, and its
biggest undertaking to date. It features 70 urban parks, interventions,
and buildings from around the world designed to accommodate
contemporary notions of recreation. Open until October 1 at
Pier 40—the first Van Alen show to take place outside
its sixth-floor gallery/office in New York’s Flatiron
neighborhood—the location represents a kind of closure
for the group, a champion of public space, which held an ideas
competition for reviving Pier 40 back in spring 1998. Senior
Curator Zoë Ryan spoke with RECORD about new trends that
are encapsulated by “The Good Life,” and how the
exhibition represents a new chapter in the Van Alen’s
own evolution.
Architectural
Record: What are the inspirations and precedents for
this exhibition?
Zoë
Ryan: I’ve been at the Van Alen for almost six
years and this show was the first I curated alone. But it’s
also sprung from a number of other exhibitions. I think one
of the first shows that really set a precedent for us was
in 2002: After 9/11, we were looking at public spaces around
the world that really helped cities come back from natural
and manmade disasters. That exhibition broadened our vision:
What does public space mean? Are public spaces still our plazas
and our parks? It also enabled people to understand what it
takes to get one of these projects built.
After that, in 2004 we ran a competition
for a recreational pavilion in Coney Island underneath the
Parachute Jump. The response was tremendous, with 800 entries.
People were really excited about recreation as a driver of
public space and the types of initiatives that enable recreation
in our cities and bring people together.
I began to be very interested in this
idea of how our spaces are being reinvented to meet our 21st-century
leisure needs, like learning and fun, not just socializing.
A lot of other issues were boiling in the air at the time,
such as the idea that recreational spaces create links between
neighborhoods, that they become our nodes of transportation.
Also, there’s this idea of getaway destinations: For
those who can’t leave the city, we need to provide spaces
and places for people to come to relax and enjoy moments of
repose.
AR:
The exhibition is divided into five categories: The Cultured
City, The Connected City, The 24-Hour City, The Fun City,
and The Healthy City. How did you devise them?
ZR:
Instead of differentiating projects by, say, scale, exploring
different themes around recreation allowed us to show that
something temporary has as big an impact as something permanent.
It also offers a more global perspective. The themes aren’t
exhaustive, but they give a snapshot of inspirational case
studies for New York.
The themes also tap into relevant issues.
For example, “The Healthy City” is about healthy
environments as well as healthy bodies. The Seattle Art Museum’s
Olympic Sculpture Park is the last parcel of city waterfront
to be developed, and it has been turned into an art park.
But the section also includes a concept for an elevated bicycle
highway in Toronto, and a project conceived for Manchester
in which commuters park and jog.
AR:
Are there any trends under which projects in all five categories
could be unified?
ZR:
To me one of the biggest aspects of the show is the idea of
the good life for all. It’s not about things that are
out of people’s reach. These spaces are meant to have
a broad range of activities, for people of many backgrounds.
The Idea Store, which is a new form
of library in the center of London by David Adjaye, borrows
from the thinking of the retail industry: They’re in
highly trafficked areas, they’re transparent, but they’re
also spaces with facilities. You can check out books, and
take workshops, and attend yoga classes.
Other projects, like a Martha Schwartz
design in Dublin, try to be very open, where the spaces aren’t
predetermined. They don’t map out that concerts happen
here, they create a range of activities in a range of spaces.
There’s also a trend in the discipline
of architecture here: All the design disciplines are working
together and are being pulled in to do these projects. One
project springs to mind, Library of Trees, a new park by Petra
Blaisse. Her team is full of graphic designers and urban theorists
and people from the fashion industry, because these recreational
sites are becoming so complex. They want to hold fashion shows
there, they want to have an educational campus on site, they
also want a very complex ecosystem of plantings so people
can learn about different types of trees. These projects are
becoming much more involved as people demand more and more
from their time off and their everyday lives; it stands to
reason there should be many minds at the table.
AR:
Describe the exhibition design at Pier 40.
ZR:
I wanted to appeal to a much broader audience. There will
be motion graphics and videos, because it is difficult for
many people to read plans and drawings. I think it’s
also very interesting to hear architects talk about their
own work.
The space is stunning. It comprises
4,500 square feet of raw garage space on the southwest corner
of the pier; it has glass doors that roll up to the ceiling
so you have this amazing waterfront space. WORKac designed
the installation and Project Projects is the graphic designer.
We have what the architects call a wiggle wall, a canvas fabric
screen that curves through the space and creates this area
for collecting information. It’s held in place with sandbags
so it’s very nautical in feel. Florent will be doing
a snack bar on the weekends for us. And I commissioned Area/code
to design a big urban game that will take place on the streets:
People will borrow adapted mobile phones with GPS and go out
and play this game of chase. We’ll have that on weekends,
and lectures, and a light exhibition. There’s a lot of
content, but we also wanted it to be a space where people
come and hang out and spend more time than they normally would.
AR:
The exhibition is unprecedented in terms of size, is that
right?
ZR:
For Van Alen, oh my God, yes. We try to keep within our means.
We’re on a relatively limited budget, but yes, it’s
unprecedented: it’s an external venue, all this programming.
It’s speaking to where the Van Alen is headed.
AR:
Could you say more about the group’s new direction?
ZR:
We’re in a new era at Van Alen. I feel like we’ve
taken the level of the institution beyond what we thought
it might become. It was this place that really didn’t
do exhibitions or its own research, and it’s really become
a think tank. Correspondingly, I think that after 9/11, the
level of dialogue about architecture and design was elevated.
People really wanted to take part and be informed, and really
understood architecture’s impact on daily city life.
It’s not just the streets, but the street furniture,
the lighting. People have really become engaged.
AR:
Imaginably, this also dovetails nicely with the arrival of
the institute’s new executive director, Adi Shamir.
ZR:
It’s exciting. Adi comes in at a time when the institute
is ready to start tapping into a bigger audience, and really
harness everything we’ve worked on in the last few years.
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