New York & surroundings

New York & Surroundings – or better – Surroundings & New York.

About monuments and individuality. About the individue and monumentality.

Discovering. Feeling overwhelmed. Admire humble. Being strengthened.

The program for the Architecture trip of New York and surroundings New York ‘or’ surroundings and New York “- blows you away. Impressive names of twentieth century and ‘monuments’ of today pile up like skyscrapers: Fallingwater, the Glass House, Seagram building, Exeter Library, Milstein Hall, Parrish Art Museum, Julliard School … Architectural masters are everywhere: Frank Lloyd Wright, Philip Johnson, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Louis I. Kahn, OMA, Herzog & de Meuron, Diller Scofidio Renfro and more.

Arnout Fonck

Arnout Fonck Arnout Fonck From metropol to hinterland to the architecture study provides above all an awareness of monumentality with sometimes obvious, sometimes surprising connections with the public space. As in Europe, the Second World War, after all, also in the United States an important mark on architecture. Not only with regard to the immigration of European architects, but also about the distrust of liberal-minded for monuments characteristic of an anti-democratic and totalitarian regimes.
Therefore Josep Lluís Sert and Sigfried Giedion spent already by the end of the Second World War a new monumentality attention with their “Nine Points on Monumentality. “Human landmarks as symbolic centers of cities […] and as an expression of the highest cultural needs of humanity.” Monumentality was thus a quality of architecture that are not necessarily with scale had to have to make, but with the intensity of expression. The finesse lay in addressing public buildings with the appropriate degree of presence, meaning and accessibility, often expressed as reinterpreted ceremonial urban space.
Arnout Fonck
The Brutal Hall of Boston from 1968 is an example of such a ‘downtown skyscraper “in which the surrounding square using ramps, steps and terraces on the ground and first floors has been introduced. Authority and openness are designed using a visual heavyweight and active spatial penetrations. A theme that both the modernist and the contemporary projects of the travel program is strong. Not only within urban contexts, but also in the typical North American hinterland.
Undoubtedly offers Louis I. Kahn himself both for his public buildings and for its housing as the master of monumentality. He managed to tackle large-scale problems without falling into the excess. Its architecture was clearly imbued with a deep sense of the importance of the individual. Through this network to embrace intimate homes or overwhelm with natural light in eg. A library. Between metropolitan hectic pace and rhythm gesapige the average American, absorbed by the dominant travel theme of monumentality and urban space during this trip so important to discover the importance of the individual.

Discovering. Feeling overwhelmed. Admire humble. Being strengthened.

Dominique Pieters

Team: Annemie Demeulemeester, Arnout Fonck, Dominique Pieters & Bruno Vanbesien

Arnout Fonck