granular, originally uploaded by nj dodge

Could Domino Sugar Factory in Williamsburg Brooklyn be converted to a museum like the former Bankside Power Plant, now Tate Modern? The people behind Domino: An Alternate Plan are floating just that idea. What Curbed deservedly calls a pipe dream is an intriguing idea. Just like the adaptive reuse of the Washburn Mill to the Mill City Museum (photos) there is ample prior art to converting wholesale industrial buildings into museums.
But this will never happen in New York City.
The best we can hope for is that the either the Sugar Box Building (the one with the Domino Sign) or the Central Processing House will be converted in exchange for more development rights. Meaning, taller buildings with more floor area ratio given over to condos. Saving a large amount of Domino for a few extra floors of condos seems like a good compromise, but the details of the deal would mean the difference between a nouveau Tudor City or a Trump development.
The biggest problem lies in finding a tenant for the many tens of thousands of square feet of exhibition space, all of which would need a hefty capital budget to renovate Domino. This is in addition to the space at the World Trade Center Cultural Center, which will be vacant now that the Drawing Center was given the boot. The cast of characters who could afford the sort of improvements and programming are small:

• MoMA – Still paying off the Midtown expansion, and set to <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/03/arts/design/03muse.html?ex=1325480400&en=c6df4a92992aaf37&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss"expand again, is stretched thin
• The Whitney – On, and off again expansion plans to its’ main building and flirting with building on the Highline make a Domino expansion unlikely
• The Met – This site is in Brooklyn, enough said as far as The Met is concerned
• Guggenheim – Currently renovating the Frank Lloyd Wright building, the Guggenheim has constantly been trying to develop an alternate site in NYC, most recently with Frank Gehry (multiple times); of all the big players, this is probably the most likely.
• Dia – just pulled out of the Highline site and seems to be at a mission drift

For Domino to be converted in a respectful manner to a museum and residential housing, the city and institutional organizations need to lend their support and guidance to the project.
Not that you can’t dream.

Flags, originally uploaded by plemeljr

Romney Ignores Blessings of New York’s Immigrants

Mitt Romney is working hard to surpass his presidential campaign competitor, Rudy Giuliani, in displays of concern over illegal immigration.
Romney recently spoke negatively of cities that provide schooling and funds to illegal immigrants, and said that during Giuliani’s days as mayor, “New York City was the poster child for sanctuary cities in the country and I think that’s the wrong way to go.”
…
City Transformation
Immigrants were central to that transformation. They flooded the city, filled the schools and rebuilt the apartments and the storefronts. Immigrants reclaimed Jamaica, that section of Queens where the riots had taken place. New block associations replaced the old Irish or Italian ones.
The city lost its divided feel. New York seemed to expand as the boroughs became inviting again. By 1995, a full third of New York was foreign born, up from 18 percent in 1970. Crime declined, and the immigrants got along in a fashion few had foreseen.

If Romney would stop a minute from constantly changing his views in order to secure Republican votes he would realize that almost every single thing he says about immigration and urbanity is wrong. Immigration saved New York because no one wanted to live here in the 1970’s, and immigrants continue to fuel the economic boom in New York City by taking jobs no one else wanted and working longer and harder for their children.
Its OK; I predict Romney will change his mind again next week, and will be praising immigrants once again.

Control Room by Haiko Hebig – via bOING bOING Gadgets

Lordy Rodriguez Downtown (2007)
Via Alaina comes this interesting exhibition by the soon-but not-quite-built New Museum entitled, Get Lost: Artists Map Downtown New York:

…a collective portrait of downtown New York. Twenty-one international artists were invited to create a personal view of the city and draw a map of downtown New York, uncovering a territory that is both real and imaginary.
GET LOST brings together fictional landscapes, utopian visions, private memories, and obsessive instructions to explore Manhattan, its past, present, and future.

This exhibition will showcase the city as seen from its’ residents, a city which each view reveals the incongruity of lvining together check-to-jowl with 8 million people. From Thurston Moore’s 70’s nostalgia to Cory Arcangel’s Google Maps of urban dislocation to Lordy Rodriguez’s act of slicing the city this looks to be an interesting take on New York, even if it is tilted toward the Downtown lot.
What is interesting is that copies of the maps are available for free at participating galleries and markers of the downtown scene and cultural organizations.

Tetris piece Death Match: Part 1 & Part 2

A proposal for the New Orleans National Jazz Center.
Two projects by mOrphosis and TEN Arquitectos Two Infusions of Vision to Bolster New Orleans:

In the two years since Hurricane Katrina, what has the rebuilding effort produced? No grand designs. No inspired vision for the future of New Orleans. There have been only a handful of earnest, grass-roots proposals to preserve what’s left of the historic fabric.

What is interesting is the amount of time and energy being spent on both projects when macro issues such as the sustainability of the city, with its’ basic infrastructure still in shambles, is still in doubt. That both proposals are quite seductive is not in doubt, the question which needs to be asked is whether or not these projects should happen or if they are appropriate to the city; especially if the TEN Arquitectos project cuts off the city from the river:

In some respects the riverfront proposal reflects the willingness to turn over large segments of the public domain to private interests. The “towers in the park” could be seen as reinforcing class stratification: an enclave of luxurious glass towers overlooking the poverty-stricken neighborhood of the Lower Ninth Ward. Yet the notion of the riverfront as a cohesive element in a fractured city is powerful, especially because it avoids the banal historicism threatening to engulf what’s left of the authentic city.

Six Mile Park by TEN Arquitectos, Hargreaves Associates and Chan Krieger Sieniewicz.
This is very similar to what is happening at the Brooklyn Bridge Park where residential towers in the park will be used to pay for the yearly maintenance of the park premises. The commingling of public and private enterprise has drawn quite the controversy with the Brooklyn Heights Association being a chief critic (see position paper).
The developer and architects would be wise to engage the citizens of New Orleans, who are not just prospective consumers, but are stakeholders in the city and region.
Two Infusions of Vision to Bolster New Orleans
Designing New Orleans Slideshow

Madurodam @ Den Haag, originally uploaded by toaster!

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