Hasta La Ideas

With just two weeks away from its planned packed, yet somber opening, one of the many concerns ahead of the New York landing of Hurricane Irene was how it might affect the still-under construction National September 11 Memorial and Museum. “Could Hurricane Irene Uproot the 9/11 Memorial?” asked the New York Observer, speculating that maybe one of the 13 cranes surrounding the area might topple over, or the newly planted trees would be pulled out by heavy winds, or any number of other things that can happen when you combine heavy construction equipment, torrential storms and a somewhat fragile newly built sheen. However, in the end, the result was quite the opposite, as not only did both the memorial and museum escape relatively unscathed, save for a few broken branches and some minor flooding, the site wound up maybe even better because of the storm. Here’s from the same paper, the Observer, just two days after that original article:

In a way, the site is in better shape for its grand opening in exactly two weeks than it would have been had their been no hurricane. “The plaza looks great,” Mr. Daniels said. “All the preparations we did in preparing for the storm actually helped prepare us for the opening, like removing excess equipment and temporary fencing that had been surrounding the pools.”

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Despite having its own many pitfalls and delays, architect and designer Michael Arad and landscape architect Peter Walker‘s “Reflecting Absence,” the National September 11 Memorial, has sometimes seemed like one of the high points of all the very-frequently troubled projects being built on the former World Trade Center Towers grounds, because it occasionally felt like it might really get finished. Now that it’s preparing to open next month, along with the the National September 11 Museum (tickets for which now won’t be available for months), some of the headlining architecture critics have gotten an early look and have since weighed in. While all the critics take note that the memorial is still virtually in the center of a construction site, given the towers going up alongside it, the verdicts are generally positive. The Chicago Tribune‘s Blair Kamin, who also interviewed master planner Daniel Libeskind to go along with his review, decides that “Though not profoundly original, the memorial still rises to a level of noble simplicity, one that could well be enhanced by the presence of people and their interaction with the victims’ names and each other.” New York‘s Justin Davidson, like Kamin, can only speculate about what the minimalist memorial will look like once all the construction ends and it begins interacting with normal, day to day life, closing with the thought, “I can’t help wondering whether the place will really be exhortation to memory, or just a pair of darkly alluring holes—a doubled invitation to oblivion.” Finally, the Los Angeles Times‘ Christopher Hawthorne gives the memorial perhaps its lowest marks, citing all the hurdles Arad, Walker, and the memorial’s planners had to jump through to get it built as the reason. He also adds that “It lacks the sharp conceptual power that an artist, rather than an architect, might have brought to the job” and that in appeasing all parties, “his design operates both as a pared down, abstract design and as a literal representation of what once covered the site.” This last review sparked something of a battle between Hawthorne and Huffington Post contributor Steve Rosenbaum, who penned a piece chiding the critic, claiming many of the facts in his review were wrong. Hawthorne replied, but only in brief, implying that Rosenbaum had not understood the things he had intended to refer to.

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We’ve been on something of a crime bent all morning, so we’re going to keep the ball rolling in that direction. Hot off the heals of Grant Smith‘s protest for photographers’ rights back in May, and an increasingly heightened awareness of potential civil liberty issues over the harassment of photographers by government officials, the Long Beach Police Department has recently become the center of attention in this particular fight. Following a rather tame incident in the city in late June, wherein a photographer was questioned by a police officer over taking photos of an oil refinery, the Long Beach Post reports that a spokesman for the department told the paper that it is within their policy to detain photographers for taking photos “with no apparent esthetic value.” That policy has reportedly been adapted from the Los Angeles Police Department‘s 2008 explanation of their Special Order #11, which was set to prevent terrorist attacks in the compiling of “Suspicious Activity Reports” and includes the same “with no apparent esthetic value” line. And therein lies the rub. According to a post by PDN Pulse, they read this as another possibly front against photographer’s first amendment rights, by demanding that the police serve as art critics, profiling photographers as possible ne’er-do-wells based simply on their tastes in making a photo. The comments on PDN’s post are perhaps the most telling, with some saying it’s in the public’s best interest to have the police keep an eye on people photographing things that might be potential targets, and others arguing that if photograph what’s in public view gives authorities the right to not only question but detain, what’s to stop the line from getting redrawn again until you’re ultimately only able to photograph authorized things? Certainly an interesting new angle to this ongoing struggle.

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Quoth the Baltimore city planning department: nevermore. Okay, we’ll admit that that’s a downright terrible joke in the face of the sad subject matter and perhaps the laziest segue into a post ever, but it’s early and the middle of the week, so what can you do? Moving on… Even though the crippling financial downfall that took countless museums and cultural institutions down with it seemed to have slowly lessened over the past year or two, the NY Times reports that another museum has fallen on hard times and is facing closure: the Edgar Allen Poe House and Museum.The paper writes that, due to budget cutbacks, last year Baltimore stripped away its $85,000 annual support for the museum, which resides in the house Poe himself lived in for two years in the 1830s. Without that funding, and the fact that their visitor numbers have been extremely low, given that it’s located “amid a housing project, far off this city’s tourist beaten path,” unless their current financial situation is remedied, the museum will run out of money and be forced to close sometime next summer. Fundraising efforts thus far have been mildly successful, but those behind the museum see only two options for its ongoing survival: the city turns back on the annual support or someone steps in with loads of money to help bail it out.

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Time-lapse footage of the BMW Guggenheim Lab construction in New York City.

The highly anticipated BMW Guggenheim Lab has kicked off its six-year, nine-city world tour. First stop: New York’s East Village, inside a 2,200-square-foot mobile structure designed by Tokyo-based Atelier Bow-Wow. Envisioned as a think tank, public forum, and community center, the BMW Guggenheim Lab is offering an astounding array of free programs—including a talk this Friday by Elizabeth Diller of Diller Scofidio + Renfro (see also: High Line, The), a scavenger hunt for sounds of the city, a large-scale interactive group game called Urbanology (play online here), and the rather intimidating “South Bronx Toxicity Tour“—that explore the challenges of urban life. The inaugural Lab, located at at First Park (Houston at 2nd Avenue), is open free of charge Wednesdays to Sundays, through October 16. The Lab will leave its temporary NYC home with some permanent improvements (stabilization and paving of the site, fresh sidewalks, and new wrought-iron fencing and gates) before heading to Berlin next spring, where it will be presented in collaboration with the ANCB Metropolitan Laboratory in Pfefferberg, and then it’s onto Mumbai. “The Guggenheim is taking its commitment to education, scholarship, and design innovation one step further. We’re taking it on the road,” said Richard Armstrong, director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation, in a statement issued by the museum. “From New York to Berlin to Mumbai and beyond, we will address the enormously important issues our major cities are facing today and engage others along the way.”

Photos in video, superstructure, and installation: NUSSLI Group, Switzerland/USA. Site preparation and construction management: Sciame Construction Co. Edited by Veena Rao. Inset photo by Paul Warchol. Video and photo © Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation

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