Page 4 of 7
Albany, New York
Inside Italian magazines, in my wishes and my dreams
Where are we now? It could be anywhere. On the last page we were talking about burgerizzas and Tesla’s ghost, and the page before that we were on the A Line in Denver. It seems so long ago that we were talking about sub, sub, sub basement conference centers and Michelangelo, and that was only three pages ago. There is not too much logic to these slideshows so this literally could be anywhere.
If you guessed we are in Albany, New York then you are either a local, a fan of architect Wallace Harrison or you read “Albany, New York” right above this in the header under “Page 4 of 6.”
I was in Albany for a professional conference, something called Quad States. It was a series of presentations, meetings and tours in a joint effort between AIA Chapters in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut and New York. As President-Elect of my local AIA section, I was sent there for free because (to be honest) the President just didn’t want to go to Albany. I parked at Newark Airport, took the AirTrain and then a NJ Transit train to Penn Station New York and then Amtrak Empire Service up to Albany, a thoroughly pleasant and fast trip that certainly beat driving up the Thruway for hours. Once you get to the Albany station, you quickly find that the station is not in Albany but instead on the wrong side of the Hudson. Luckily you’re only an Uber away from your hotel and the city.
I chose to stay at a Hampton Inn on Chapel Street, about a half mile from the convention center. I generally try and stay away from the convention center hotels if I can, not because I want to particularly avoid everyone else I know staying at the convention center hotels, but, well, that is a bonus at times. The half mile walk each way is also a bonus, although I did not realize the elevation gain (about 100 feet but it felt like 1,000) that I would need to walk up every morning on my way there. At least the walk, on the border between the city and Empire State Plaza, was really quite pretty most of the time.
Empire State Plaza is one of the most Modern places you can visit in the country. Designed by Wallace Harrison, it has parking, an indoor unpleasant concourse with nice art, a large reflecting pool, repetitive towers, a history museum, a sculptural arts center and the original New York State Capitol Building all lined up in almost perfect symmetry. It sometimes feels like you’re trapped in a bad science fiction movie, which isn’t intended to be an insult at all.
The tallest of those repetitive towers is the Erasmus Corning II Tower, at 44 stories it is the tallest building in New York State (as long as you ignore everything in New York City). At its top level is a free observation deck, a great chance to see the Empire State Plaza, as well as the Empire State itself as well.
That sculptural arts center is called The Egg because, well, it kind of looks a little like an egg. Quad States offered a few city tours, but the only one that interested me was the one of The Egg, because, well, it kind of looks a little like an egg, and who wouldn’t want to see inside an egg?
The inside of The Egg was interesting. It certainly felt like you were in 1965 (again, not meant as an insult) and the lobbies with the exposed concrete were kind of beautiful. Inside the theaters felt like any other theater, and you almost wished as if they weren’t there and the whole egg shaped Egg could just be open lobbies inside.
We have moved on from Albany (sorry, Albany fans) and are now an hour’s drive west by rental car, where we’re standing together in a field, looking into the sun and walking among too many cows to count (apparently I can not count to nine). Welcome to Williamstown, Massachusetts and the Clark Art Institute.
This is my second time to Williamstown and the Clark and during that time, the Clark got a hell of a lot more interesting. The Tadao Ando additions completely reimagined the buildings to make the experience almost unrecognizable from what it once was. Even in late fall, with the pool drained and a lot of the leaves already long gone, the buildings and grounds never looked better.
The Clark Art Institute is more than just the Tadao Ando buildings, the landscape (and cows) are also part of the experience. And there’s even art to be found out there, like Thomas Schütte’s “Crystal” a shed which does a surprisingly good job of framing the landscape (and cows).
If you’re going to go all the way out to Williamstown, there’s no way that you’re not going to drive just a little further east to North Adams and MASS MoCA, which, along with New York’s Museum of Modern Art, Minneapolis’ Walker Art Center, London’s Tate Modern and, I don’t know, let’s say the Pompidou in Paris, is one of my top five favorite art museums anywhere.
MASS MoCA is physically huge and that’s a good thing. It’s also a lot bigger than the last time I visited, including newly opened buildings and an absolutely terrific James Turrell semi-permanent exhibit, although they need to give you more time in “Hind Sight” (it took me like twice that amount of time at the Mattress factory in Pittsburgh before I finally saw the color). There is no photography allowed in the James Turrell exhibition (sorry, James Turrell fans), but there is photography allowed just about everywhere else.
