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Knowlton School of Architecture (2005-2009) (Evan)

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    evidence for future analysis

    Evan Chakroff
    Jan 21, '09 1:06 PM EST

    for an upcoming essay/presentation on OMA's Waterfront City, Dubai. Guess the thesis!

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    Exhibit A:




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    Exhibit B:




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    Exhibit C:






     
    • 8 Comments

    • Banality?

      Jan 21, 09 2:48 pm  · 
       · 

      nope.

      Jan 21, 09 3:08 pm  · 
       · 

      cities within cities? artificial density? reclamation?

      i really don't know, biut it's interesting.

      Jan 21, 09 5:41 pm  · 
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      cowerd
      Jan 21, 09 5:51 pm  · 
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      drums please, Fab?

      urban design as museum curator

      Jan 21, 09 7:16 pm  · 
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      mantaray

      something to do with city support infrastructure, and flow of human movement through and to a city... how a relatively isolated city is plugged in to larger networks and also feeds from its own interior networks? I don't know.

      Jan 21, 09 9:53 pm  · 
       · 

      so this is still an early theory... but notice on the Waterfront City plan, the project is not only the gridded square island that gets most of the attention - there's also a part laid out like Venice, irrational and intercut by canals. The juxtaposition between these two urbanisms seems to suggest the relationship between Venice and its cemetery San Michele, an artificial, square, gridded island away from the main islands of the city... there are formal similarities: the number of blocks, the one missing corner, the relative placement of the cemetary axes and the green space, etc.

      The placement of the "sphere" - a holdover from an earlier OMA project (and from Delirious NY if you wish) - in the Waterfront City indicates to be that the gridded island is literally a cemetery for old discarded projects, and by extension, for the NYC grid, an urbanism ill-suited to the demands of modern-day Dubai. (Note also that for all the benefits of the grid, it has never appeared this unscathed in OMA urban plans.

      So, i suppose the thesis is that the waterfront city gridded island is a memorial to the grid, and to Manhattanism, much as Venice is a permanent memorial to itself....

      Jan 22, 09 12:23 pm  · 
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      mpsyp

      Look at the obvious ties to Eisenman's Venice project and Rossi's Venice island... definitely on to something.

      Feb 7, 09 7:35 pm  · 
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