Circling Columbus
designslinger]
This weekend the new home of the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD), by architect
Brad Cloepfil, opened on Manhattan's Columbus Circle. The building is a reworking of the original 1964 design by Edward Durell Stone, for A&P grocery heir Huntington Hartford. Known primarily by its address, 2 Columbus Circle, Hartford wanted the building to house his art collection and provide an alternative to the Museum of Modern Art. Stone used decorative elements of Venetian palazzo design on the building facade, as the inspiration for his interpretation of "historical modernism." When it was completed, critics, along with the general public, hated it; one very influential art critic, Hilton Kramer, called it "one of the worst designed museum structures in the world."
A few decades can make a big difference in the life of a building. When MAD took over
and decided to gut the place, no one had any problems with the reworking of the interior. But, the proposed demolition of the exterior raised quite a ruckus. It was a preservation battle reminiscent of the fight to save Grand Central Station and the building made the World Monument Fund's 100 Most Endangered Sites list. Cloepfil's reworked exterior hasn't drawn quite the disdain that Stone's facade weathered in the 60s, but the redo has been met with a lukewarm response.
Columbus Circle got its name, because of the monument erected to the explorer by the
Italian American community in 1892, commemorating Columbus' arrival 400 years earlier. By 1905, the population of the upper Westside was exploding and the city decided it was time to ease congestion and created a traffic circle and fountain, around the column. The idea of a "Grand Circle" at the intersection of Broadway, 59th Street, and 8th Avenue had been initially proposed by Frederick Law Olmsted, the great landscape architect of Central Park. He wanted a street scape that would enhance the Park's southwest corner entry, and in 2005, after 100 years of urban abuse, the circle and fountain underwent a major restoration.
nyc-architecture /Artwork: designslinger]
Along the west side of Broadway as it passed Columbus' statue, stood a group of
ramshackle buildings and one of the street's northernmost theaters, The Cosmopolitan. As the city entered the 1950s, the Circle had hit hard times and the neighborhood was considered seedy. The notorious city planner Robert Moses pushed forth a proposal to build an exhibition building, at the curve from 58th to 60th Streets. In 1956 the bulky behemoth, New York Coliseum, opened to the same critical derision as Edward Stone's 2 Columbus Circle. The design included an office tower and exhibition hall that swallowed up 59th Street, and a facade that ignored the prominent curve it fronted. However the Coliseum did prove successful in starting a revival of the Upper Westside, along with the 1962 opening of Philharmonic Hall at Lincoln Center.
Eventually, the Coliseum outlived its usefulness and the Time Warner corporation
decided to build their new headquarters on the site. Unlike the demolition of its Columbus Circle neighbor, no one seemed upset to see the old exhibit hall fall. The front of the new complex hearkens back to the old days, by curving the facade and placing a clear glass box at the approximate location of the long gone 59th Street. Time Warner Center and MAD add to the sheen of glass which has overtaken so much of Manhattan; they contribute to the city's never ending endeavor to improve its reflection and make it appealing to the millions of tourists who fill its streets.
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