September 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.

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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.