First of all I would like to apologize for the pictures, I was not able to fit them to the screen.
After having attended several different events and galleries I have decided to write this assignment about the exhibit I found the most interesting, the ‘Berlin-New York Dialogues: Building in Context’ exhibit at the New York Center for Architecture. I also found this exhibit to be the most relevant with the course as it compares two different cities and their architecture in many different ways.
The Center for Architecture is located at 536 LaGuardia Place. The center has hosted many different architectural exhibits and also offers weekly lectures with a wide variety of speakers. The ‘Berlin-New York Dialogues: Building in Context’ exhibit opened on November 8th and will remain at the gallery till the 26th of January, 2008.
The exhibit is about Berlin and New York because as they refer to it, these two cities are “two of the world’s most dynamic urban centers” and they “are making radical transformations in their streets and skylines”.
Berlin is the capital of Germany and with a population of over 3.4 million, it is Germany’s largest city. Berlin is probably one of the most interesting cities in the world as it has undergone a series of historical and cultural turnovers in the last century. Probably the most interesting part of the city’s history is the drastic change that it has undergone since the Wall was demolished in 1989. Today, Berlin is seen as one of the capitals of Europe and more importantly as the European capital for modern art and creative minds. This is critical as I believe that it affects the city and its architecture.
New York is probably one of the most important cities in the world, seeing as how it is aptly named the ‘capital of the world’. Here in New York anything can happen, therefore it is not shocking that they picked this city as the subject for the exhibit. With over 8.2 million inhabitants, New York is one of the most rapidly changing cities and tries to always be one step ahead when it comes to innovation, especially when it comes to architecture.
The exhibit took place in the center’s lower floors, so once you entered the gallery you had to take the stairs down to enter the exhibit. The reason why I mention this is because I believe they did an extraordinary job with introducing the viewers to both cities. What they did was that they marked different relevant information on the walls in the staircase. This is of great importance to the show as it introduces the viewers to both cities through comparing data such as the population, area, density, number of museums, population growth, number of foreigners, number of schools, and many other relevant data. This was great as the viewers are introduced to both cities and their data from the start and it allows them to better understand them and the similarities and differences they share.
The exhibit was extremely interesting and I believe that did great in communicating their message to the crowd. I thought that the way they set it up was a great choice although sometimes there seemed to be almost an excess amount of information gathered on too small an area. What they did was that they fully covered the walls with texts and pictures of different architectural projects going on different parts of both cities. They divided the different projects with different colours, design, and markings on the floor. Because the wall space was probably not sufficient for the whole exhibit, they also created a certain amount of booths placed in the center of the rooms. It was interesting to see that they did not only use images and texts on those booths but they also added small screens displaying videos about different projects. Although those videos were a bit visually dull, I still believe that they made the exhibit more interactive.
The whole concept of the exhibit was to “investigate the changes in these two cities by looking at the contemporary built environment and mechanisms of urban regeneration – the social, political, economic, and cultural processes that affect the building”. I believe that the show was very successful to cover a large amount of important projects happening in both cities, what also made it more interesting was the fact that there was so much diversity in those different projects. They did not only focus on one neighborhood or one type of project but on three. Looking at New York as example, they show everything from current projects going on in Harlem or Brooklyn to bigger and more expensive projects that are going on in Chelsea. This was a great thing as it allowed the viewer to have a greater understanding of cities and the diversity that both cities have to offer through those different neighborhoods. It is important to show and explore differences and commonalities between distinctive international cities and cultures. The different projects also shown in the exhibit also shows how Berlin claims that it is the European cultural and intellectual center. New York, on the other hand, tries to maintain its creative and financial reputation through those new projects. The theme that was the most obvious was the cultural differences. The exhibit focused a lot on showing how these were two extremely diverse and full culture cities they were. The fact they introduce the viewers with so many different data that is culture related only strengthen my argument.
One part of the exposition that I found impressive and actually very important were the gigantic posters representing New York viewed above and Berlin viewed from above. The posters are actually place by the atrium that can be seen in the window. Both poster take up two floors in height, have a yellow tone, and have labels of the areas that are covered in the exhibit. I believe that these posters are of great importance because they attract passenger walking by to come in and take a look at the exhibit. They also allow the viewer to see the difference in size of the two cities and to see how Berlin is much more spread out than New York, which I believe plays an important role for viewers in understanding the exhibit.
To conclude, I would say that I found this exhibit highly successful in educating the viewers about the two cities. In many different ways, New York and Berlin are two capitals of the world, and it felt only right to do an exhibition about architectural projects going on the two cities. What makes it even better is that they not only show the architectural project but also how it affects a community and a whole city. I believe that this exhibit is a must see!
