4.19.2019 | DIGS.NET 53
location
Manhattan, New York
Firm
Heatherwick Studio
heatherwick.com
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or London-based Heatherwick
Studio, designing the centerpiece
of Hudson Yards—one of the
largest real estate developments in
America that has transformed a former
rail yard in Manhattan's Upper West
Side—presented the opportunity to
create a large-scale expression of the
human experience.
Soaring an astounding 16 stories
and boasting a beehive-like design,
the company's Vessel might have been
a bit of a Trojan horse were it not so
thoughtfully conceived. What looks
like a transplant from the future in fact
nods to places of congregation in cities
across the New World and Old, including
Rome, where the Spanish Steps served as
a point of reference for the sculpture, as
did traditional Indian stepwells. As an
interactive art piece in the 21st century,
however, the Vessel takes shape as an
entirely new public offering: a circular,
bronzed-steel and concrete climbing
frame with a labyrinth of staircases and
viewing platforms fostering engagement
between social and physical environments.
According to Heatherwick, the company
tapered the parameters of the project,
intending it to be "a memorable single
object" rather than a dispersion of objects
throughout the space. So what might have
been an "inert, static sculpture" is instead
infrastructure designed to stimulate
"activity and participation" among users.
heatherwick.com
