Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Sights
1
St Marks Place
STREET
One of the most magical things about New York is that every street tells a story, from the
action unfurling before your eyes to the history hidden behind colorful facades. St Marks Pl
is one of the best strips of pavement in the city for story telling, as almost every building on
these blocks is rife with tales from a time when the East Village embodied a far more law-
less spirit.
In April 1966, Andy Warhol rented the building at number 19 to 25, refurbishing the in-
teriors and using it for a month-long party he perplexingly dubbed the Exploding Plastic
Inevitable.
(St Marks Pl, Ave A to Third Ave;
N/R/W to 8th St-NYU, 6 to Astor Pl)
Understand
SANAA's Vision
While exhibits rotate through the New Museum, regularly changing the character of the space within, the shell -
an inspired architectural gesture - remains a constant. It acts as a unique structural element in the diverse city-
scape, while still fading into the background when necessary to allow the exhibits to shine.
The building's structure is the brainchild of the hot Japanese firm SANAA - a partnership between two great
minds, Sejima Kazuyo and Nishizawa Ryue. In 2010, SANAA won the much-coveted Pritzker Prize for its contri-
butions to the world of design (think the Oscars of architecture). Its trademark vanishing facades are known
worldwide for abiding by a strict adherence to a form-follows-function design aesthetic, sometimes taking the
land plot's footprint into the overall shape of the structure. The box-atop-box scheme provides a striking counter-
point to the clusters of crimson brick and iron fire escapes outside, while alluding to the geometric exhibition
chasms within.
2
New Museum
MUSEUM