"It does not matter how good are the designs by landscape architects Field Operations and architects Diller Scofidio and Renfro: when it becomes a public park, it will cease to be a magical lost domain, and that is the end of it. Manhattan will have gained a valuable pedestrian resource, but lost a secret."
When I got to this part in Hugh Pearman's testament to the virtue of urban dereliction I had to go dig up the above image - it is from the proposal slideshow for the redesigned High Line. The starting point for the architects' pitch was "keep it" - keep it green, keep it simple, etc. -a rubric founded in the appeal of the derelict structure. A nice mantra, but as Mr. Pearman makes clear, it is one that, given the context, is impossible to reduce to its most basic form: just keep it.
Not building: the lure of desolation found at Things Magazine
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