Roughly three months after the opening of Diller Scofidio + Renfro and the Rockwell Group's cultural venue at Hudson Yards, several media publications and critics have voiced their opinions about The Shed. Having received a variety of reviews, some have shown interest and praise of the space while others have addressed the Shed's connectivity to corporate greed, false philanthropy, and inclusion. Despite it all Manhattan's newest cultural hub still stands, hosting performances and other events since its grand opening, as intended. However, a review made by famed architectural critic Joseph Giovannini back in April casts The Shed in a different light.
A prominent figure in architectural writing and criticism, Giovannini has reviewed and shared his thoughts on several projects over the years, including Zumthor's LACMA design, Zaha's Port House, and Ghery's Louis Vuitton Foundation. Pulling from his own experience in professional practice and writing, Giovannini provides Architectural Record with a straightforward unambiguous review of The Shed. Throughout the piece he talks of the Shed not only as a structure, but as an integral component relating to performance. "The Shed," explains Giovannini, "is not so much an object as a performance."
Giovannini continues, "The Shed is the platter on which art that is not yet imagined will be served; it's a garage for creative start-ups." He praises the venue's atmospheric qualities, as well, stating, "the Shed has a charismatic urban presence, especially at night, when it glows like a Japanese lantern along the Hudson Yards' southern edge."
Giovannini also appreciates the structure's overall construction, emphasizing the Shed's mobility on-site and its "figurative" mobility for the arts.
However, three quarters to the end of the review, Giovannini expresses a comment of the Shed's design that I found revelatory: "To find moments of 'design' within the general sobriety of the strictly orthogonal, mostly gray base building, you have to go into the restrooms, where mini-mosaics are arrayed in an essay of grays, with white tiles bubbling toward the ceiling. Yet the assiduously neutral design is somehow poetic. It is not the poetry of form but the poetry of the ballet mécanique [...] The point of the dance, however, is that the building adapts to changing programs [...] The building is a servant structure without an architectural ego."
Agreed entirely. The Shed is amazing, everything else around it is awful and, in effect, ruins the experiential magic that the shed could have were it placed in a better urban landscape.
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the shed is a nice piece of design that is ruined by its context — a mcurbanist scheme of depressing towers and competing with the vessel for attention. Would be much better without the vessel and open space. But the site just doesn’t feel warm at all ... like there is no thought to everything as a whole, just randomness. Holls plan was way better
Agreed entirely. The Shed is amazing, everything else around it is awful and, in effect, ruins the experiential magic that the shed could have were it placed in a better urban landscape.
THE shed
Looks like one of those fussy down jackets popular in large cities.
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