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Hudson Yards, New York
2021 will you think about us, copper goes green, steel beams go rust
This slideshow started in 2020 at opening day at Edge, then flashbacked to 2019 for opening day at Vessel, and now finds itself way, way back in February 2014, when construction at 10 Hudson Yards was barely above ground and you could see all the way to that brutalist building over the railroad tracks, long before it was renovated and renamed Manhattan West. This picture, taken on an Open House New York tour of the (eventual) Phase 3 section of the High Line, gives you an idea of what was there before Hudson Yards, which truthfully was a whole lot of nothing. Not that a whole lot of nothing doesn’t have some value- in Manhattan, it is otherwise impossible to see open empty space like this, and even though its totally inaccessible and filled with sleeping Long Island Railroad trains, it was, in its own way, kind of refreshing.
Flash forward five years later and the four city blocks past 11th Avenue (the bridge spanning the rail yard) are almost completely developed with Hudson Yards and Manhattan West, a forest of 1,000 foot high towers claiming land that was always there but never really noticed.
From February 2014 we flash forward all the way to October 2016. This is inside an unfinished floor at 10 Hudson Yards, the first tower completed since it was built on land not above any railroad tracks. This is part of an Archtober tour- a wonderful program by AIA New York that features a different building tour every day. This tour took us inside 10 Hudson Yards and into the Hudson Yards Preview Center, where renderings and models of the future were everywhere. Opening day for Vessel and the plaza and the mall were still an impossibly far two and a half years away, so, with frenzied construction on all sides, it was a great opportunity to be in the middle of it and try and see the future.
The Hudson Yards Preview Center had lots of models that actually included Thomas Heatherwick’s Vessel. Renderings and plans for Hudson Yards had been available for years, although where the location where Vessel stood always remained empty. There were reports that a great piece of public art would go here, and then an early description in the NY Times of a chalice you could walk on, but no actual images were released until a month earlier in September 2016. No one at the time had any idea what to make of it to be honest, and many still don’t.
This model shows the view of the plaza from Eleventh Avenue, with (left to right) David Child’s Equinox Tower, just a glimpse of Norman Foster’s 50 Hudson Yards, 30 and 10 Hudson Yards by Kohn Pederson Fox framing the mall building, and the Shed and 15 Hudson Yards by Diller Scofidio + Renfro on the right.
One of the nice things about the Archtober site visit was to experience quick views of the High Line like this one, a far, far better view of it than you would ever get compared to the 1,100 foot high floating balcony at Edge.
From October 2016, we flash forward again about a year and a half (or so), and from AIA New York we go up the food chain all the way to AIA National. In June 2018, the AIA (American Institute of Architects) held its annual convention in New York, which it likes to call A’18. With over 26,000 attendees, the AIA claims it was the largest single gathering of architects anywhere in the history of the planet, although that’s probably a pretty low threshold to meet. No one remembers learning about mass architect meet ups in ancient Rome or Mesopotamia. Just saying.
Anyway, A’18 featured a construction tour of Hudson Yards along with a presentation by members of each of the firms involved in the design, and by June 2018, things were starting to look pretty far along. Starting from the left is 55 Hudson Yards (780 feet high), designed by Kevin Roche and Kohn Pederson Fox; 35 Hudson Yards / Equinox Tower (1,008 feet high), designed by David Childs / SOM and blocking 30 Hudson Yards (1,296 feet high), designed by Kohn Pederson Fox; then the other KPF tower, 10 Hudson Yards (878 feet high); and finally 15 Hudson Yards (917 feet high), designed by Diller, Scofidio + Renfro.
Sure it was great to get to see the Hudson Yards Preview Center and it was a once in a lifetime experience to hear from all of the architects involved at the same time, but the best thing about that A’18 tour back in June 2018 was a quick chance to put on a hard hat, walk the future plaza and see up close what was going on with Vessel and the Shed, still ten months away from opening day.
After flashing back and then flashing forward, we’re back to the plaza and the present day and back to the plaza, And after spending some quality time at Edge and at Vessel, it’s finally time to visit Shed. Sorry, I mean The Shed.
When Hudson Yards first opened in March 2019, review after review were unkind to the project and to Vessel (I already wrote about this on the last page), but they were generally nice to Diller, Scofio + Renfro’s (The) Shed, a brand new cultural institution in a super flexible space that features a huge, um, shed that can slide out and claim part of the public plaza as exhibition space whenever it wants. That’s a fun idea and what’s not to love about a super flexible space, so the initial reviews are understandable. In reality, a year later, I’m not sure they were right.
I have been to The Shed a few times to see performances (including opening night for a wacky and truly terrible Kung Fu musical on the plaza inside the shed part of The Shed) and a few exhibitions, and have not been as impressed as expected. The problem with a truly flexible space is that it starts to sacrifice character to flexibility. The lobby (single function, no flexibility) is actually quite nice, although the entrance sequence from the plaza side is not nearly as nice as it is from the West 30th Street side. But then the connecting piece- the escalator well- is really quite banal and leads you to floor after floor with high, solid, boring white walls with some nondescript double doors in them. And once inside, the gallery space sure is flexible but that doesn’t mean it’s interesting.
While I am not a fan of the inside of The Shed, the outside is still really impressive and the shed part of The Shed is especially interesting. On the plaza are rails and person height sets of wheels that can slide the shed piece back and forth. It’s construction is very light, all those white translucent panels are made of ETFE, and in five minutes the entire thing can claim another 16,000 square feet of exhibition space, or nest on top of the galleries and give another 16,000 square feet of space back to the public.
During an Archtober tour in October 2018, a project manager from Diller, Scofidio + Renfro provided a presentation and outdoor tour of The Shed, and said that due to its light weight and the perfectly flat level of the rails, the entire shed can be moved back and forth with the power of a single car engine. Pretty impressive.
This three page, seven year long slideshow comes to its inevitable end back where it started. Or, more accurately, when. On March 11, 2020, on opening day of Edge, The Shed was pulled open covering the plaza, but open to the public with no art inside other than Lawrence Weiner’s “In front of itself,” which is somehow not visible in any of these pictures. So days before The Shed shut down and back before people on the plaza started following social distancing guidelines, here are five last pictures under (t)he Shed (and one inside the lobby) to remember what it was once like outside. Or maybe this is actually inside. I’m not sure to be honest.
