BEYOND THE HIGHLINE

Eduardo Cadaval

At present, modern democratic societies are transforming the way of understanding the practice of urbanism as well as the processes through which this discipline operates. The basic urban planning systems are being subjected to a rethinking of their meaning where the integration of civil society in the processes that define and modify the city have been transforming the way it is built.

The process to reclaim and transform the Highiline from an industrial remnant located on Manhattan’s “west side” to a new public space for New York City exemplifies the potential of this new form of urban planning and recycling. These processes, being more open and inclusive, generate new opportunities while eliminating the risk of generating unique or dogmatic views of the city.

Last September the international competition for the transformation of the Highline was failed. After a first selection from among 56 proposals, Zaha Hadid, Steven Holl, Terragram and Field Operations along with Diller & Scofidio, were selected as finalists. In a second stage, the project of the New York office of urban design, landscape and architecture, Field Operations, was chosen as the winner.

Beyond the competition and the architectural solution, the Highline, the effort to recover it and the process to transform it from an industrial ruin into a public space, offer a fascinating and sobering story of urban development and citizen participation. A public-private, civic-governmental exercise, which will result in more green areas and spaces for coexistence for the city. It is also, probably, a good example of how the systems that will transform and develop cities will operate in the future of democratic societies.

The Highline and its history

The Highline is an old elevated train track built in 1930 as a result of the plan to improve the industrial infrastructure of Manhattan, its ultimate goal was to eliminate the circulation of industrial trains at street level in order to avoid the large number of accidents that this situation caused. In those years, New York’s Tenth Avenue was known as “the avenue of death” due to the high death rate that coalitions between trains, pedestrians, and floats caused.

In order to prevent the new train track from running over Tenth Avenue and thus generate the negative conditions associated with elevated meters at that time, it was decided to build the new track in the middle of urban blocks, allowing the Trains will run inside industrial complexes and buildings, connecting directly with factories and warehouses in the area. The system, in addition to allowing greater efficiency in the transportation of goods, eliminated 105 dangerous crossings while preventing trains from causing vehicular traffic in this area of ​​the city.

In 1950, with the expansion of the North American highway system and the growth of the trucking industry, train traffic decreased notably in the Highiline, which by 1960 had already lost part of its original route and by 1980 was definitively closed.

Until not long ago the Highline was a forgotten industrial ruin on the west side of Manhattan. For more than two decades it was at grave risk of being demolished due to real estate pressures and a sui generis property regime. (the structure and the floating platform, has a single owner) but the land on which it is located belongs to a number of owners, so in reality the property of the Highline is only air or “right of air” a model of Very common property in New York, but which limits its potential and transforms it into a unique company since it will be a public space, floating above privately owned land and buildings: galleries, parking lots, mechanical workshops, gas stations, etc. that will continue to operate below the existing structure.

Fortunately in 2002, a group of artists, writers, architects and residents of the area formed the non-profit association “Friends of the Highline” in order to save this structure. Captivated by the great variety of flora and wild vegetation that had invaded the place, turning it into an ephemeral park, they decided to propose to the city that instead of demolishing it, it be transformed into a public park. Probably the biggest lesson of this group is their proactive attitude and a modern vision of conservationism, the idea was not only to save the Highline from being demolished, but to recover it for the city and they were going to take care of that. In this way, instead of just opposing the city plans, they proposed an alternative use for said structure, and not just that, they went further and decided to become the executing entity and engine of the project that will now transform the Highline into unique space for New York City.

The strategy

“Friends of the Highline” decided as a strategy to move with the system instead of fighting it, first they went to court and stopped the demolition plans of Mayor Rudolf Guliani, later, after running a financial analysis and verifying that transforming the Highline in public space would benefit the city by increasing its green density and increasing the real estate value of the area (and therefore tax collection), they got the support of key congressmen such as Hillary Clinton or Charles Schumer, state senators, elected officials from the city, and so they continued until they managed to convince current Mayor Michael Bloomerg. Who decided that he would contribute a quarter of the approximate cost of the project (fifteen of the sixty million needed), if the group committed itself to getting the rest.

In this way, he began a clever strategy to publicize the Highline and its attributes. As a first movement, they organized an ideas contest (without requiring that the proposals be realistic), where artists, architects, landscapers and urban planners from all over the world (720 proposals were received from 36 countries) imagined fantastic scenarios for this space: pools of 2 kilometers long, a roller coaster crossing 22 streets of Manhattan and even the simplest but at the same time poetic proposal that consisted of leaving the Highline practically in its current state.

All these proposals were seen in an exhibition designed by LOT / EK in the lobby of the historic central station. The projects captivated the inhabitants of the city who in turn were able to familiarize themselves with the place and with the rescue idea that “Friends of the Highline” proposed. After the success of this first movement and with the challenge of raising the remaining 45 million to bring the rescue to a reality, “Friends of the Highline” undertook a media collection campaign, which included gala parties, political negotiations, private donations. , among other. For this purpose, they again had the intelligence to play with the system and include public figures, such as the Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Caro or the actor Edward Norton who acted as spokesmen for the project attracting a large number of media and donors.

After raising funds and having put the Highline at the center of the debate, this non-profit organization summoned personalities from the architectural-urban world to a competition (this time realistic and executable), to transform the Highline into a public space. After a first selection from among 56 teams from around the world, four offices were selected, that of Iraki architect and Pritzker laureate, Zaha Hadid, New Yorker and resident of the Highline Steven Holl, Michael Van prominent landscaper and tenured professor at Harvard and Field. Operations, an office of landscape and urban planning headed by James Corner, which is currently transforming the old New York garbage dump into a park 2.5 times the size of Central Park.

The purpose of the contest was more than accumulating big names, so as part of the contest requirements, the teams had to include urban experts, architects, engineers, landscapers, biologists, as well as artists and financial analysts, with the purpose of that each proposal was fully supported in all aspects that involve the project and that it was fully executable, viable and possible.

The place

Today this floating platform runs through three of the city’s most dynamic neighborhoods: West Chelsea, the Meat Packing District and the Hudson River Rail Yards area. In the last 15 years, Chelsea has become one of the international centers of contemporary art, with countless galleries and museums that once were in Soho and that with rising rents and real estate costs, they decided to move here. former manufacturing area. The Meat Packing District, where previously there were only wineries, butchers and meat processors, has become one of the most fashionable places in the city, with exclusive bars and restaurants as well as boutiques of the most exclusive designers. Finally, at the north end of the Highline is the area of ​​the Hudson River Yards, the largest open-air train hangar in Manhattan and which will soon be covered by a new real estate development with the construction of a gigantic sports stadium, which will be part of the infrastructures that the city is building, as a strategy for its candidacy for the 2012 Olympic games.

Measuring 2.4 kilometers in length, 12 meters wide on average and floating 10 meters above street level, the Highline crosses 22 blocks, crosses 2 buildings and travels over 13 others, offering a unique situation, the perfect setting for a new type of urban planning and public space, visitors will be able to walk along 22 blocks of the city, without having to negotiate with the car or even deal with vehicular traffic, it will offer unique views of the city and a new relationship between the public and the the private, perhaps even a new time, “Highline time” since being detached from the city, -floating above it- the Highline will have its own rhythm offering the visitor to escape for a moment from the speed and paranoid rhythm of New York .

The proposals

It could be said that the four finalist proposals understood and worked with the essence of the Highline. Zaha Hadid’s project was an elegant geometric abstraction, a liquid object that flowed dynamically with the existing structure. Hadid proposed more than a park a building and perhaps forgot that the Highline by itself has a brutal force that does not require reinforcements, another of the limitations of Zaha Hadid’s project, was the precarious plant presence, in his proposal the landscape was a mere decorative element, underestimating its potential as a generator of space and creator of specific atmospheres.

Steven Holl, used the Highline more than 20 years ago, to make “bridge buildings” one of his theoretical proposals that he experimented with the interaction of urban infrastructures and housing units. Now Holl proposed an open and interdisciplinary project where a diversity of artists and architects, including among others Vito Acconci and Matthew Barney, would carry out specific interventions in accesses, nodes, interstices or even in the design of mobile urban furniture that would run along the old roads. of the train. With a strategy similar to the winner, Holl’s proposal lacked moments of intensity and above all, the unity and congruence of the Field Operations proposal.

Telegram and Michael Van Valkenburgh, had probably the weakest proposition. A project that played with a romantic vision of the landscape and that did not allow more activities than those derived from a simple walk. With some points of intensity in the accesses and in pieces proposed by James Turrell, as a member of this team, the proposal did not have a congruent binder, losing its coherence and underestimating the potential of the site.

Of all the proposals, the winner, from Field Operations with the Diller & Scofidio Collaboration, proposed perhaps the smartest strategy: a flexible system of precast concrete strips that could be assembled in different configurations and at different stages. The bands would create a new platform that generated a gradient with subtle transitions between the hard surface and the plant material. With this system, the 2.4-kilometer route would have different relationships and percentages between the paved surface and the green areas: 20% hard and 80% green, 30% and 70%, 50% and 50%, 0% 100% and countless of configurations that allowed and would generate new activities.

The plate system also allows the construction of the project in non-linear stages, starting at the ends to join, from the center to expand or from various points to connect. With a limited palette of pieces with different angles and proportions, the proposal created moments of great intensity only with different combinations in the assembly of said pieces. With this system, auditoriums, access ramps, urban beaches and even a floating pool above the streets of New York were generated at the most significant points of the route.
In the FO project, the plant material is an active material that allows the recovery of the “Highline ecosystem”, harboring new species, conserving the habitat of those that currently inhabit the place and generating greater biodiversity. This plant material will grow anarchically in the grooves created in the joints between plates, poetically assimilating the way in which nature invaded industrial ruin, (a process that finally saved the Highline by inspiring the idea of ​​transforming it into a park).

Finally, it is important to say that it is from the recovery of this ecosystem and the relationship of public uses that an extensive list of programs and new activities is generated in the already extensive palette of activities in the city of Nueva York.

Implementation and last lesson

The process to recover the Highline and turn it into a public space is far from being a simple process; It will not be a short or simple day, and it will include a series of complex processes and negotiations in the political, legal and financial spheres. The total amount to cover the cost of the project is not there yet and there is still a long way to go to convince all the interests that feel affected by the project. However, the important thing is that the first steps have already been taken and that they have been so important and strategic that they will not allow the next ones to be in the opposite direction. Following astute legal and political moves, it has been ensured that the Highline is not torn down and the commitment of the authorities to the new project has been secured.

One of the most important aspects to highlight is that the transformation of the Highline has not been solely in the hands of the government authorities, but in a strategic alliance between a non-profit organization and the urban planning office of the city of New York. This formula makes it possible to obtain the desired balance between political and social interests; Between public and private.

With current projections, the first stage of the project will be open to the public at the end of 2005 and the completion of the proposal as a whole is estimated to last five years. The important thing for now is to understand the system and highlight its benefits, to understand that it is in this whole story where the lesson is. It is through the definition of a proactive, executive and inclusive participation process that the future of the city is not only in the hands of those who govern it, but in the hands of all those who inhabit it.