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NYC free wifi-provider collaborates with Never Built New York with kiosks around the city

2018-07-16T15:45:00-04:00

An astounding collection of architectural projects that never made it into being are being displayed on kiosks around New York City. Based off the 2016 book Never Built New York, LinkNYC—which supplies the city with free wifi—is collaborating with curators and authors Greg Goldin and Sam Lubell to highlight some of the fantastical structures that appeared in their book, and almost graced the city's famous skyline.

While never actualized, many of these unbuilt plans for towers, bridges and parks, hold a unique place within architectural history and its collective imagination. Memorable proposals such as Moshe Safdie's 'Habitat New York', Robert Moses' Mid-Manhattan Expressway, and I.M Pei's 'Hyperbloid', are some of the works that will be on display. Placed on kiosks near the location they would have risen, the posters show what could've been, reminding passersby it's okay to dream.

"Show audiences that it's okay to dream" by Kickstarting Never Built New York

2017-05-23T13:16:00-04:00

Architecture author and curator Sam Lubell is partnering with the Queens Museum to bring Never Built New York into the physical display space with a little help from Kickstarter. The drive, which needs to raise another $26K in 29 days, hopes to physically model some of the innovative, occasionally wild designs that were proposed decades ago but never realized. Lubell believes the project would "show audiences that it's okay to dream" in terms of imagining large-scale, inventive solutions to contemporary urban problems. The modeling would take place on one of the largest scale models of New York City and its surrounds, as explained in the accompanying video to the Kickstarter drive.

One-to-One #45 with 'Never Built New York' authors Greg Goldin and Sam Lubell

2016-11-07T13:51:00-05:00

Never Built New York, by curators and authors Greg Goldin and Sam Lubell, is an astounding collection of architectural projects that never made it into being. The book features projects from the last two centuries, sited all throughout the five boroughs, that range from the monumental to the mortifying. Alongside infamous projects like Buckminster Fuller’s dome over Manhattan and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Key Plan for Ellis Island, visions for an alternate New York-urbanism abound: aborted reflections of their time, place and politics.

The book continues in the tradition of Goldin and Lubell's 2013 exhibition, "Never Built Los Angeles", including focused research on each project alongside gorgeous drawings and visualizations. I spoke with the authors about their curatorial approach to the book, and the projects that they were most excited by.

Check out a selection of the Never Built projects below and in the image gallery.

Listen to One-to-One #45 with Never Built New York authors Greg Gold...

"Never Built New York" catalogues alternative visions of the City

2016-10-11T19:20:00-04:00

In an alternate reality, a half-mile-diameter dome would enclose much of Manhattan. The dome would regulate the city’s temperature and reduce energy consumption, according to the man behind the plan, R. Buckminster Fuller. Titled “Noah’s Ark #2”, the fantastical idea actually found a sponsor and the idea went through preliminary feasibility studies.

This is just one of the 200 unbuilt projects for New York City included in Never Built New York, a new book published by Metropolis Books. Authored by Greg Goldin and Sam Lubell, the book is a follow-up to their popular edition Never Built Los Angeles, and documents unbuilt plans for towers, bridges, parks and airports from the outrageous to the banal.

An 1870 project by Rufus Henry Gilbert sounds a bit like Elon Musk’s Hyperloop: a series of elevated, pneumatic tubes would propel passengers across the city. Suspended in tall Gothic arches, the tubes would be powered by compressed air.

The Museum of Modern Art building in New York carries ...

The NYC that could have been – 'Never Built New York' to be released this fall

2016-07-27T20:16:00-04:00

The authors and curators behind 2013's Never Built Los Angeles, a collection of fantastical and aborted projects from LA's 20th century urban history, have now turned their attention eastward, to New York City.

In Never Built New York, Sam Lubell and Greg Goldin (with a foreword by Daniel Libeskind) uncover nearly 200 urban projects from the last two centuries that, for any host of reasons, failed to launch. Some of the showcased never-beens are Buckminster Fuller's glass-domed (Brooklyn) Dodgers Stadium, Stephen Holl's Bridge of Houses (destined for the spot where the High Line is now), and what would have been Frank Lloyd Wright’s final project: his dream city, the Key Plan for Ellis Island.

The book comes out in the U.S. on October 1. More info here.