adaptive reuse

Architecture Monday

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Also excited that, especially as a lover of trains (and, of course, train stations), I got a chance to check out the new Moynihan Train Hall!  The destruction and demolition of Pennsylvania Station in NYC is, by this point, the stuff of legends.*  And what remained of Penn Station was… not great.**

But sitting across the street is the James A Farley building, a post office designed by McKim, Mead & White, the same architects and in a similar Beaux-Arts style to the original station.  It too languished over time, with a central atrium that was later filled in.  Fortunately, as luck (and a lot of hard work) would have it come to pass, the atrium was once again opened up and the building brought into use as a new hall for Penn Station.

It’s a great work of adaptive reuse.  The main trusses that grace the hall have a very expressionist feel of early steel structures, with rivets and small cross-members galore.  But the vaults of glass that span them are decidedly modern, bulbous and leaping away from the trusses to open the sky above.

It’s an open and very inviting space, with all the grandeur that a grand station deserves.  And whether it could ever match the original or not (and to that I have no inkling nor idea), it is still mighty fine.

The Moynihan Train Hall by SOM in a building originally by McKim, Mead & White.

 

* The short of it is that Pennsylvania Station was an amazing and, from nearly all accounts, beautiful structure, all reduced to rubble to build Madison Square Gardens.  It was an event that catalyzed the development of the historical preservation movement in North America.

** For decades afterwards, the still-active train tracks were nothing more than an 8’ high ceilinged bunker underground.  “One [had] entered the city like a god; one scuttles in now like a rat,” was the description given by historian Vincent Scully.

Architecture Monday

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I just got a chance to visit the revitalized TWA Terminal (now a Hotel) at JFK airport…in all its sensual, sinuous, and soaring glory!

Unfortunately as I was under some time pressure heading off to catch a flight in a different terminal building, I didn’t get a chance to really admire it from the outside (so the linked photos that remain from my previous post on the building will have to suffice), but what I saw and experienced inside more than made up for it. In a word, it’s stunning.

It’s decidedly classic retro-futurism (or perhaps still neo-futurist) now, but the ‘nostalgic’ feel isn’t what really got me.  It’s the space, the glorious space, with it’s outstretched wings soaring overhead and how it, and its structure, and just about every other single object in the space seems to be connected, seamlessly merging and swooping and emerging from the other until it becomes a single object.  And the sunbeams!  They add a strong element I hadn’t considered before.

With the addition of the new jetway (and the hotel wings as well) behind the original terminal building, the huge expanse of glass no longer looks out onto the tarmac as it once would have, cutting it off a bit.  But placing an old prop painted in TWA livery (which itself is now a cocktail bar) helps keep some of that old feel alive.

Ok, natch, the retro-furniture does evoke some fantastical and nostalgic feels!

The subtle tile work on the underside of all the swoops.

And I’m never going to get tired of the swooping forms lifting off into flight to become cantilevered seats, bars, counters, and more…

My photos aren’t the best here, as with the time pressure I wanted to spend more time being present and experiencing the space rather than into the camera. And glad I did, I could have spent hours more there to experience every bit of it.  A true delight and masterpiece.

The TWA Flight Center by Eero Saarinen and Warren Platner.

Architecture Monday

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These large buildings were built just before 1900, able to hold 12 million cubic feet (360 thousand cubic meters) of coal gas.  Perhaps needless to say, coal gas isn’t in use anymore, so what to do with their ornate and richly detailed brick-ness?

Can we just pause here for a moment and admire that ornateness?  These are, after all, “only” industrial and utilitarian structures.  But it was understood that these were civic buildings, and that our surroundings influence our experience and quality of life.  So it wasn’t a stretch to ensure that such prominent hunks would be worthy of those who had to view them and as such given a well designed exterior.

Returning to that question, it’s likely no surprise (if you’ve seen anything I’ve posted here before) that the answer is one of adaptive reuse.  Much like the Battersea Power Station, these four gasometers have been re-imagined into a mixed use neighbourhood.  The domed steel structures were transformed into giant atriums for new construction that rings along the exterior, acting like a giant indoor garden for the new units.  Each building was redone by a different architect, and as such each has a different design within.  It’s as cool as it sounds.

The Vienna Gasometers, re-envisioned by Jean Nouvel, Coop Himmelblau, Manfred Wedhorn, and Wilhelm Holzbauer.

Architecture Monday

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Another adaptive reuse!  This time in Amsterdam, with a rejuvenation of a former mercantile exchange.  While the outside’s been brought back to all its turreted pointiness, it’s the addition of the glass geodesic-like dome on top that caught my interest.

It’s not much of a presence from the street, and it’s not trying to be.  It even cuts into itself to avoid impinging on the turrets (while, as a bonus, creating an outdoor gathering space).  But it’s one wicked, column-fee space inside, a soaring crystal cover whose diagonal rib work offers dynamic windows onto the world.

And then, in one of those turrets, is this very cool time-infused room…

Sweet work.  The Diamond Exchange Capital C Amsterdam by ZJA + HEYLIGERS

Architecture Monday

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Is this a house for Rapunzel?  Sure, why not… but it’s even cooler than that!  Take a restored hull of and old mill as the literal core, add an airy addition to one side to compliment the heavy brick construction of the mill on the other, and you have a most intriguing place to live.

 

Not surprisingly given both living in a tower but also its smallish size, the tower, there’s a lot of vertical division going on within, with the library on the first floor, the bathroom on the second, bedroom on the third, and crowned with an office (with a view!).  All accessed by a sweeping stair that travels along the outer edge and punctuated with arched windows.

This photo shows off much of what I love here, including the way the heavy texture of the brick plays off the slickness of the floors and the steel and glass addition.  And the fun of tower living!  But also how much that arched opening into the brick tower it looks like a giant pizza oven…

Adaptive reuse, tower living, libraries, and more.  Great stuff.

House Wind by Architecten De Bruyn

Architecture Monday

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There’s a couple of reasons to love this former power plant in the heart of London.  The first is the building itself, majestic, assertive, and positively iconic in all of its art deco glory (especially so from its use on the cover of a Pink Floyd album).

Sweet design with sweet detailing, and a great reminder that even industrial buildings warrant great design for those who both work within and live around it.

The second is the amazing mixed-use adaptive reuse of the building that was recently completed.  Retail and office spaces use most of the space within, including the cavernous turbine and boiler halls, while residential lines the periphery and, with a remarkable flair, as new glass and steel boxes set delicately atop the existing brick base.  Well-proportioned and taking cues from the existing conditions, the new apartments compliment the original design very well.  A trio of linear gardens join also the residences atop the building.

Even the old control rooms were given a chance to join in the fun, handsomely restored to their glory.

Reading up on the history, after the station was decommissioned there were some unfortunate twists and turns and false starts that resulted in a long dormancy and the whole thing falling into disrepair.  It’s fortunate and great to see this new form come to fruition, restoring the landmark design while also providing a great mixed-use addition to the neighborhood.  And it’s adaptive reuse, so you know I have to love it.  Great stuff.

The Battersea Power Station, originally by Giles Gilbert Scott, and one of the largest brick buildings in the world.  He also designed the Bankside power station, also the site of an amazing adaptive reuse into the Tate Modern art gallery!  Adaptive reuse design led by WilkinsonEyre (more pictures, videos, and historical photos at their site — and check out the jaw-droppingly interesting Chimney Lift, an elevating glass room the size of the inside of the chimney that emerges to give 360 views, wow).

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Check out this nifty school right next to the California Science Centre.  Adaptive reuse + a new wing by Morphosis.  And as a Morphosis building you know you’re going to get a lot of hyper expressive screens, stairways, and outdoor pavilions, but this comes with a bonus covered courtyard nestled within the historical structure plus green roofs and a berm that embraces the new building.

Next to a science centre, art museum, olympic stadium, and soon to be motion picture museum, plus a DC-8 as an entry piece, and nifty architecture… pretty darn cool.

The Dr. Theodore Alexander Science Center School by Morphosis

Architecture Monday

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Oh I so love this.  A pair of old and disused granaries next to a lotus pond reworked into an arts centre.  And while the granaries are sweet in their own right, with their rhythmic progression towards new grand windows at either end and a lovely terrazzo floor that mirrors the lotus pond nearby, it’s the twin curving brick structures that make this such a delight.  Sinuous and sculptural they are poetry of  space and light.

TaoCang Art Centre by Roarc Renew

Architecture Monday

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Adaptive reuse can always be such a delight, and this is no exception!  A ginormous former postal service mail sorting warehouse turned into a huge new combo of shops, restaurants, and offices, with a huge flexible music venue and topped off by an even huger green roof, complete with urban farm!

Before…

 

Also before…

The strategy is a cool one, cutting away large sections of flooring and roof to create three large atriums capped by translucent glazing, each one named for the sculptural stair within that joins the two levels plus garden roof:  X, O, and Z.  The patina laden character of the warehouse remains on display, especially through the old painted columns that still retain their wear and tear as well as identification markers, all coexisting nicely with the more sleek glass and steel additions.  Not to mention that grand rooftop garden.

I dig this kind of project, where super-solidly built buildings – whose construction feels like it can last another thousand years – and, rather than demolishing them, reuses them by taking advantage of that solidity in creative ways, as was done here through new openings and amenities that the solid structure could easily handle.  And voila, a whole new venue ready for use without debris and energy use of tearing the whole thing down and starting over.  Great stuff.

POST (see what they did there?) by OMA