Two Follies in the Manhattan Bridge
Design Research Studio: Iconoclash // Infrastructure & Monument
University of Pennsylvania | Instructor: Ferda Kolatan | Partner: Tuo Chen | Fall 2021
Our project is about designing a new type of 21st-century garden with follies on the Manhattan Bridge. We choose garden with follies as our program because there are clashes between the fictional and the real, the historical and the contemporary, the natural and the cultural, already embedded in these two 20th century follies themselves. The follies are two iconic elements, the arch and the colonnade that once celebrated the spectacle of infrastructure in the early 20th century and the remnant concrete highway piece of the Lower Manhattan Expressway (LOMEX). Today, the existence of these two past-monumental structures creates problems and contradictions to the site which no longer values their monumentality. The design intention is to turn the confrontation of these two icons into a contemporary garden, allowing visitors to wander among the nontraditional and unusual nature, colliding with the urban background.
Monument (left) | Folly (right)
The site is consisted of two iconic elements, the arch and colonnade structure and the remnant of lower Manhattan expressway. They clashed with each other evoking contradictions and problems to the landing area such as the diminished cultural value of the monuments. The notion of folly inherited clashes between the fictional and the real, the historical and the contemporary, the natural and the cultural.
Reimaging existing monuments as contemporary follies opens up an unique way to rethink these old iconic structures and bringing new culture value to the society.
The Arch Colonnade Folly
The Arch and Colonnade Folly is intimate, lush, intricate, and tranquil. The aquaponic system is embedded in this folly in order to sustain plants on the top while challenging the classic arch and colonnade topology.
Inside Follies
The Manhattan Bridge as a Contemporary Garden // The Highway Folly and The Arch Colonnade Folly
The highway folly is bold and grand in a contemporary way that almost touches but still stands a distance from its neighbor. Visitors first drift into an enclosed dark and mossy planting space underneath the highway surface after they leave the first folly.
Iconoclash of Monument and Infrastructure
The gap in between these two follies is designed to create a strong and unusual tension between these two iconic structures. In this way, the end of these two follies evokes a sense of pondering to the visitors. Making them to rethink and question the relationship between the Arch and The highway bridge, the infrastructure and the ornament. Overall, the Hybrid of these monumental structures flips the coin of typical definition of dichotomies through the design, in order to proclaim the new contemporary aesthetic and culture.
