Saturday, May 7, 2016

Design apparently awakens the next few days on Astor Place



Yesterday morning workers started erecting that big tent/pavilion-y thing on Astor Place. (Despite a report on social media, this isn't the cube in a new shape.)



And as we will conveniently cut-n-paste from The New York Times:

A group of structures known collectively as Design Pavilion will take over the newly renovated Astor Place Plaza. Highlights include an installation by Snarkitecture for the condominium development 125 Greenwich Street; a structure designed by Harry Allen with the biomaterials company Ecovative; the DuPont Corian Blur Bar by Joe Doucet; and Growth, a show of new objects curated by the American Design Club.

Find the official site for A Design Awakening here. All this is is here through Wednesday.


As for the cube, the return date is late May/early June.

Thanks to Vinny & O for the photos and Marc for the links!

15 comments:

  1. construction isn't finished and the City has already monetized the space! I guess should be impressed.

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  2. It's kind of funny they would take this large hack job of a plaza and render it useless for a weekend. The tenants in the glass tower must have similar spiral eyes at this point after everything they've been through in the past two years.

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  3. That looks like crop. And will that block pedestrians from walking through?

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  4. WTF is this crap? Designed by some drunkards? I want my neighborhood back - go away, trendoid fuckers.

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  5. "Snarkitecture"? Really?

    How vomitous.

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  6. Another stupid project that rich hipster companies think
    we will be impressed by.

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  7. Looks interesting....I hope this plaza gets used for more events on design, arts, culture.
    Will check it out...

    - East Villager

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  8. Why so negative? Looks interesting to me.

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  9. WHERE'S THE CUBE???

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  10. I'm going to actually see it with mee own eyes, then comment. I'll keep yas all posted!

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  11. "Why so negative? Looks interesting to me."

    So correct. It looks cleaned up.





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  12. This is just more real estate propaganda fronted by art and design, like the BMW Guggenheim Lab for First Street Green, The Ideas City Festival at The New Museum, and any kind of mural/public art.
    Rallies and protests are intrinsically linked to freedom of speech, where as sanctioned public art and design installations are sensored and therefore inevitably marketing propognda for real estate developers and corporations.
    As we all know, any kind of mural, even one of Dr. Martin Luther King can be manipulated for the purposes of Luxury Housing, High Fashion, consumerism, etc., and it is, more so now than ever.

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  13. 10:28

    Good points although don't forget through history art had been funded by the wealthy as in the Catholic Church during the Renaissance, later the wealthy merchant class and today big corporations. Public space however is not for the public to create art but to view and experience city approved art. Private galleries may be the last place left which is not controlled by these forces. Museums however these days are all about mass appeal and selling tickets to blockbuster shows.

    From the images this installation does not interest me, another modernist installation of multiples in a grid. Safe, shallow and worst of all "fun".

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  14. Is this Beetle House?

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  15. Where are the lamp posts Jim Power decorated that were in this Astor Place area?

    Why are we looking at this stupid "blue elevator button" shit instead of REAL art like Jim's? Jim is not only talented, he's actually a long-standing member of the neighborhood, unlike all these talent-free corporate promoters.

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