When I first started this blog one of the things I wanted to write about was design – I just realized that I really have not written too much about design except to comment on design and architecture within a hotel project.

For me personally, I am extremely interested in design – something that looks different from what you may always see, or at least be used too, yet nothing that stands out like a sore thumb. I realize that design (art) is really in the eye of the beholder – something that may stand out to me as one of the best implementations of, lets say, a hotel lobby, or a color scheme, or a logo, may look like the ugliest thing ever to the person standing next to me.

My mother is an elementary school art teacher and I’ve always been surrounded by art and encouraged by her to be creative – draw, paint, etc. Unfortunately (sorry mom!) I’ve never been very interested in being “creative” via those outlets – the way I enjoy being “creative” is by building, and constructing things – be it my Lego town when I was in elementary school (the size of two pieces of plywood placed side by side), to my current interest – creating and working with hotels. I’ve always been encouraged to study or take up architecture, but that’s never interested me because, well – I just dont enjoy drawing. It’s a little contradicting, I know…

Anyway, last week the artist,  Olafur Eliasson in conjunction with The Public Art Fund, and the City of New York announced plans to build four man-made waterfalls in the East River of New York as part of an art installation called “The New York City Waterfalls“. The plan is for four structures, just off the shoreline of the Brooklyn Bridge (on the Brooklyn side), by Governors Island, Pier 35 in Manhattan, and between Pier 4 & 5 in Brooklyn  – reaching heights of 90 to 150 feet from the river surface, built with the same type of scaffolding you might see around any building site (particularly New York City), with pumps that will provide a constant flow of water from the top of the structure from 7AM to 10PM. At night they will be lit up – offering what it sure to be yet another very unique appearance.. The exhibition will last from mid-July to mid-October.

Here are pictures of how the waterfalls sites are supposed to look:

 
Brooklyn Bridge Waterfall

Governors Island Waterfall

Waterfall between Pier 4 & 5 in Brooklyn

Waterfall in front of Pier 35 in Manhattan

What interests me so much about this art exhibition is the size and height of these structures – roughly 9 to 15 stories high, and how they contrast with sites and locations that we’ve become accustomed to – the Brooklyn Bridge, Governors Island, the NYC Skyline, etc. Not only that but the sight of these large, stationary structures in the middle of the hustle and bustle of NYC and the East River will be sure to make anyone stop for a minute and just take it in. Seeing a waterfall, which brings images of nature, and natural surroundings in the middle of the busy commercial an industrial surroundings of the East River will be quite an experience – maybe not to everyone, but to some. At the very least, it will make people do a double take: ‘how and why is there a waterfall, in the middle of the East River??!!’

I have to admit, when I first heard of this idea – but the analytical side of me immediately had two questions – how was power going to be supplied to these pumps? Is it going to be a generator on each waterfall structure? Will there be power provided by land? Will the power line be hidden underwater? How will the structures stay upright and in place, since in the renderings they don’t appear to be placed on a barge or anything of that nature.

This project is somewhat along the lines of the temporary art display called The Gates: Central Park, where the famed artist Cristo lined 23 miles of walking paths within Central Park with over 7,500 gates, each unfurling a large orange sheet of fabric. The Gates exhibition lasted only from February 12th to 27th in 2005, yet it brought a lot of attention to NYC and brought more attention to the arts.

The Gates exhibition did not excite me because seeing orange pieces of fabric flapping in the wind just doesn’t excite me – but floating waterfalls in the busy east river, placed within a commercial and industrial surrounding that is recognizable almost worldwide does.

The New York City Waterfalls is sure to be another popular art exhibition, I personally cannot wait to see it, as even though almost every paper that I read will have some type of coverage of it – seeing it in person will can not compare to a picture in the newspaper. I can’t wait to see what else New York City and The Public Art Fund dream up next!

andrew@alconic-inc.com