Posted in Abandoned, architecture, Art, environment, freeway, graffiti, Interchange, Photography, Structures, Transportation art on September 13, 2007 | 10 Comments »
Who says taggers don’t have a sense of humour? (and where have I heard that one before?). Very appropriate in light of the state of Quebec highway overpasses these days.
Another one of these.
And how is this for a painting of itself while being a painting of itself?
Posted in architecture, Art, Driving, freeway, Interchange, Paintings, Transportation art on August 27, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
Posted in architecture, Art, freeway, Paintings, Structures, Transportation art on June 18, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
Posted in architecture, environment, freeway, Interchange, Structures, Transportation art, Urban on June 14, 2007 | 4 Comments »
Excellent and well researched essay by Thomas Benton Keifer Gray.
Architecture and the Freeway
“The disruptive nature of the freeway is especially apparent when it is examined in relation to the individual architectural components of the city, which before the freeway had little competition within the built environment. Bruce Webb notes that “The design of the architecture and the spatial experiences along freeway corridors has not kept pace with the design of the freeways themselves, where a highly refined and precise technical-engineering approach has resulted in highways that satisfy a limited range of criteria.” He goes on to note that “architects have, by and large, had little real impact on the design of freeways and have failed as well to develop viable, special solutions for this general class of building-context problems” (Webb 1994). Not only does it create a crisis in terms of the architectural profession, which is seeing itself become marginalized by transportation engineers as the freeway, as opposed to the building, becomes the defining physical structure of the modern city, but it also creates what Webb terms “a great discontinuity” among the elements of that built environment. Webb describes the friction between architecture and the freeway:
The architecture which lines the freeway seems made up of capricious or desperate elements struggling to maintain a connection with the no-nonsense minimalism of the highway. The awkward spaces in between, medicated by a prosthetic architecture of signs, fail to satisfy even the most basic requirements of place-making (Webb 1994).
What is so ironic about this friction between the freeway and architecture is that highways can oftentimes be as beautiful and as evocative as a fine piece of art or architecture. They are massive, authoritative sculptures that are experienced by tens of thousands of people on a day-to-day basis; “Technology at this scale can be beautiful. Powerful” (Webb 1999). If so much thought and care goes into the design of buildings, why can similar thought not be put into freeway design, as well?
Just as important as the freeway’s effect on the city and its dwellers is the freeway’s effect on its users: the motorists themselves. A 1968 publication of the Federal Highway Administration emphasizes the “visual enjoyment” of a highway, recalling a quote from the New Yorker which reads “travel is not solely for the purpose of arriving – there should be pleasure along the way, and a window on the world” (FHWA 1968: 37). Halprin focuses on the experience of motion and the reference of the freeway:
These vast and beautiful works of engineering speak to us in the language of a new scale, a new attitude in which high-speed motion and the qualities of change are not mere abstract conceptions but a vital part of our everyday experiences. Though man is dwarfed by the size of these immense structures, he regains his relationship to them by participating in their use. Freeways involve each of us visually through the strength and urgency of their structure and also through the qualities of motion which they make possible (Halprin 1966: 17).
For Halprin, the failure to achieve a reconciliation of the freeway with its architectural or urbanistic realm is one of failing to see road-building as an artistic endeavor (Halprin 1966: 5). Quite literally, the concept of enhancing the aesthetic value of the freeway is about unifying the technics of transportation with the subjectiveness of art. This is not just about making them fit in better to their urban surroundings but is also about making them more pleasant to experience for everyone.
Indeed, aesthetic sensitivity in highway design is important for the same reasons aesthetic sensitivity in architecture and urban design is important: it provides beauty and comfort, creates a sense of place, evokes an emotion and leaves an impression on those who experience it. This is the underlying assumption of this report.”
For the full report click here.
A good example of the failure of architecture (architects versus transportation engineers?) to utilize the freeway as a site of aesthetic integration and public discourse is the recently built noise barrier walls along highway 20 through Lachine. While no doubt quite functional, this wall is of a design that offers no suggestion beyond being a negation of the space beyond. The eye roams and finds the north side of the freeway open, irregular, a realm of signs and possibilities – it is “somewhere”. But all is not lost. As anyone who has ever rented space in an old factory can attest, sometimes all you need is a bit of colour.
Here is an organization that has ideas for the Turcot Interchange.
Posted in architecture, Containers, transportation, Transportation art, Urban on April 17, 2007 | 3 Comments »
Have I said I would like to find paintings or drawings of Turcot Yards, the Interchange, the Falaise Saint Jacques, and environs? Well, the nice thing about blogging is we can share our dreams (smile) and something that is sort of almost like what we want to see. And thanks to the good folks over at Polar Inertia we have another related set.
This is sort of almost like what Turcot Yards looked like during it’s Intermodal era.
Port Terminals: Strategy Analysis Consumption Network Operations
These images are a series of paintings, drawings and photographs depicting the landscape of the global economy. Port Terminals like these are commerce reduced to its essential form, sites built for efficiency only. They are sites that are immense and empty, seemingly still and unmoving, yet incredible volumes of materials move through daily. These container ports are an abstraction of the infrastructure, underlying our cities and suburbs. They are points of consumption and entry. I see landscapes like these as reflections on the values, needs, and dependencies of our culture. Both on the outskirts and fringes, they are essential to our daily lives. I have been interested in large shipping terminals for awhile. I take photos and create paintings reducing the image down to a simplified, essential gesture
on the landscape. They are about weight density and space. The satellite drawings also draw from an objective source and are a search for pattern and structure.
