Friday, December 16, 2011

Manhattan Grid 1811-2011 - Conceptual Urbanism - Grids, Words & Twitter Feeds


“The most courageous act of prediction 
in Western civilization: 
the land it divides, unoccupied; 
the population it describes, conjectural; 
the buildings it locates, phantoms; 
the activities it frames, nonexistent.”  

Rem Koolhaas 

"...The 1811 plan has demonstrated remarkable longevity as well as the flexibility to adapt to two centuries of unforeseeable change...”

Susan Henshaw Jones
Ronay Menschel Museum Director



In a separate gallery from the main show,
another section to the exhibition focuses on the Call for Ideas organized around seven themes. Manhattan Grid as a Template for Words was among those chosen to exemplify the grid's capacity to serve as a conceptual framework for more theoretical art and architecture.



Shan Jayakumar (concept + text + schematic design)
Barbra Tolentino (graphic design)


"The invention of writing is a profound legacy of the first cities that sprang up in the fertile delta of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers of ancient Mesopotamia. Little else is left of this ancient civilization, Sumer, other than mounds in the desert and scattered artifacts. Yet we still have the texts that these early authors composed on clay tablets. Most famously, The Epic of Gilgamesh, King of Uruk, continues to resonate with readers today.

Like the cuneiform grids of the tablets that recount the story of Gilgamesh, so too the Manhattan grid evokes a landscape lush with text. From novels and poems along with essays and reportage to advertising, blogs, and Twitter feeds, we are enveloped by the glyphic, now often in digital form. The conceptual rendering in this exhibition presents the city as a multidimensional hub of expression, extending into virtual space..."
Shan Jayakumar, Design Statement 
Shan is currently co-project lead for Architecture for Humanity's 
Under the BQE project to evolve a safety plan with the community

Develop Audacity!
Saturday December 17 at 2pm 
Creating the Grid-Family Workshop
 is being held in conjunction with the exhibition 
The  Museum of the City of New York 
1220 5th Avenue
New York, NY  10029
212-534-1672


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