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Rockaway Museum of Art
Rockaway Museum of Art
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Other Projects by Bureau V
Rockaway Museum of Art
Firm
Battery Harris is located in the mixed maritime forest and grasslands
area of the Rockaway Peninsula in southern Queens in New York City. The
western portion of the peninsula served military purposes since the War
of 1812, given its strategically advantageous relation to both New York
Harbor and the Atlantic Ocean. By the early twentieth century, the
longer firing-range capabilities of arms on seafaring vessels rendered
older batteries in more central locations unable to adequately defend
the city. Taking enemy boats out further offshore became imperative, and
consequently, Rockaway Peninsula and Sandy Hook, New Jersey on the
opposite side of Lower New York Bay, became increasingly strategically
relevant.
Upon entering World War I in 1917, the United States government began to
establish a more committed Rockaway garrison, Fort Tilden. Originally
called “Camp Rockaway,” the fort was heavily armed from the outset,
outfitted with 6-inch guns and 12-inch mortars, among other weapons.
Still fairly isolated from Brooklyn and the more populated areas of the
peninsula, Fort Tilden’s supplies were delivered to a wharf on Rockaway
Inlet and then distributed by rail to a series of storage magazines and
military installations, the remnants of which dot Fort Tilden’s
now-overgrown 317 acres like the ruins follies of British gardens, like a
latter-day Piranesi incarnate.
Shortly after the establishment of the new fort, the War Department
ordered for the emplacement of two 16-inch gun batteries to be installed
on barbette cartridges. These extremely powerful, 170-ton guns were
capable of 360-degree horizontal movement. They could destroy enemy
vessels long before they approached New York Harbor and were capable of
sinking large ships eleven miles offshore. This installation thus
became increasingly important during World War II, when German
submarines menaced American shipping vessels during the Battle of
Atlantic.
The 16-inch gun batteries were unsheltered for over two decades, until
the early part of World War II when they were finally casemated. The
partially earth-covered concrete casemates were built in 1941-42 to
protect the guns from aerial attack and to protect New York from the
guns themselves: the casemates restricted the guns’ horizontal firing
range to 145 degrees and narrowed their vertical movement from 69 to 47
degrees, ensuring that they could not be turned around and trained on
the city in the event of enemy infiltration.
The casemates were installed simultaneously with the installation of two
similar casemates for the 16-inch guns at Battery Lewis in Navesink,
NJ, the highlands section of the most concentrated constellation of
coastal artillery defense installations in the country, a several-mile
cluster which also includes Fort Hancock’s Battery Potter (1892), the
nation’s first and only steam-lifted disappearing gun battery and a
pioneering example of the use of concrete for military architecture.
Batteries Harris and Lewis also closely resemble the casemates at Camp
Hero in Montauk, Fort Story in Virginia Beach, and Fort Funston in San
Francisco, all defined by the unique semi-circular protuberance, which
covered the guns and carriages and which formally set the structures
apart from older artillery fortification structures. The architecture
of the battery thus closely, if unwittingly, follows Louis Sullivan’s
imperative that function dictate form, a defining Modernist ethos.
Battery Harris’ form departs from that of the angular, crenellated
structures that populate the Platonic ideal of the architecture of
defense in the Western image-repertoire, an ideal that had informed the
residually castle-like Battery Potter. Instead, Battery Harris elicits
associations with various forms of spiritual architecture, both
venerative and tombal. The battery’s plan is cruciform, with shortened
transepts like a Latin cross but equidistant “nave” sections, like a
Greek cross. The main nave-like aisle is flanked by small chapel-like
rooms, which were originally used for ammunition storage.
Approaching the battery from the south side (where the gun was),
associative recollections of temples-in-the-round, the Great Stupa at
Sanchi, and the fat, spiraling minaret of the Great Mosque of Samarra
generate. Though Battery Harris’ entrance is at ground level, the entire
structure is essentially underground, as the casemate is covered by a
thin layer of dirt, which has accumulated low but dense maritime
vegetation, identical to that of the surrounding landscape. Thus, the
entire church-like space is in the uncanny state of being at once
underground and at ground level. Entering Battery Harris is not unlike
walking into Philip Johnson’s hill-bound subterranean painting gallery
in New Canaan, CT, or, presumably the Mycenaean Treasury of Atreus (Tomb
of Agamemnon), upon which Johnson’s gallery was based. The
temple-cum-tomb sensibility is apropos, as the museum is itself a sort
of body-less tomb.
After World War II, the guns at Battery Harris remained in place for
only four years, at which point they were sold for scrap metal. Thus the
guns and the casemates were only in place together for seven years.
Fort Tilden was declassified in 1974, and the land and former military
installations were transferred to the National Parks Department.
Battery Harris is open to air on all sides, as the building once
accommodated the direct transport of weapons via rail; tracks still
visibly run through much of the interior and are seemingly still
resurrectably functional. Though all sides of the building could
function as entrances, the building is most dramatically approached from
the south portal, former site of the gun. Visitors would enter RoMoCA
through the south portal under the hood of the casemate. Under this
roof, an existing pavement winds around a circular plaza that once held
the cartridge and gun; this space provides the setting for a gateway
artwork related to the exhibition. The nave-like main corridor provides
a space for the primary gallery for larger works, while the chapel-like
rooms that were originally used for ammunition storage accommodate the
museum’s smaller galleries for drawings and related material, and the
naturally low-light conditions of the cavernous structure provide a
well-adapted setting for projection-oriented exhibitions.
These renderings show Battery Harris in hypothetical exhibition
situations. Renderings conceptualize views of the “transepts” looking
north from the south portal, the “nave” in an exhibition situation, and
the “transpets” depicted in a cross section that demonstrates the
underground nature of the space. The renderings show the rail tracks
being reused for moving plinths for three-dimensional works. Lighting
has been added to the ceiling of the plan, but otherwise the concept is
for a minimally invasive, preservation-minded repurposing of a building
that played a notable role in American history.
area of the Rockaway Peninsula in southern Queens in New York City. The
western portion of the peninsula served military purposes since the War
of 1812, given its strategically advantageous relation to both New York
Harbor and the Atlantic Ocean. By the early twentieth century, the
longer firing-range capabilities of arms on seafaring vessels rendered
older batteries in more central locations unable to adequately defend
the city. Taking enemy boats out further offshore became imperative, and
consequently, Rockaway Peninsula and Sandy Hook, New Jersey on the
opposite side of Lower New York Bay, became increasingly strategically
relevant.
Upon entering World War I in 1917, the United States government began to
establish a more committed Rockaway garrison, Fort Tilden. Originally
called “Camp Rockaway,” the fort was heavily armed from the outset,
outfitted with 6-inch guns and 12-inch mortars, among other weapons.
Still fairly isolated from Brooklyn and the more populated areas of the
peninsula, Fort Tilden’s supplies were delivered to a wharf on Rockaway
Inlet and then distributed by rail to a series of storage magazines and
military installations, the remnants of which dot Fort Tilden’s
now-overgrown 317 acres like the ruins follies of British gardens, like a
latter-day Piranesi incarnate.
Shortly after the establishment of the new fort, the War Department
ordered for the emplacement of two 16-inch gun batteries to be installed
on barbette cartridges. These extremely powerful, 170-ton guns were
capable of 360-degree horizontal movement. They could destroy enemy
vessels long before they approached New York Harbor and were capable of
sinking large ships eleven miles offshore. This installation thus
became increasingly important during World War II, when German
submarines menaced American shipping vessels during the Battle of
Atlantic.
The 16-inch gun batteries were unsheltered for over two decades, until
the early part of World War II when they were finally casemated. The
partially earth-covered concrete casemates were built in 1941-42 to
protect the guns from aerial attack and to protect New York from the
guns themselves: the casemates restricted the guns’ horizontal firing
range to 145 degrees and narrowed their vertical movement from 69 to 47
degrees, ensuring that they could not be turned around and trained on
the city in the event of enemy infiltration.
The casemates were installed simultaneously with the installation of two
similar casemates for the 16-inch guns at Battery Lewis in Navesink,
NJ, the highlands section of the most concentrated constellation of
coastal artillery defense installations in the country, a several-mile
cluster which also includes Fort Hancock’s Battery Potter (1892), the
nation’s first and only steam-lifted disappearing gun battery and a
pioneering example of the use of concrete for military architecture.
Batteries Harris and Lewis also closely resemble the casemates at Camp
Hero in Montauk, Fort Story in Virginia Beach, and Fort Funston in San
Francisco, all defined by the unique semi-circular protuberance, which
covered the guns and carriages and which formally set the structures
apart from older artillery fortification structures. The architecture
of the battery thus closely, if unwittingly, follows Louis Sullivan’s
imperative that function dictate form, a defining Modernist ethos.
Battery Harris’ form departs from that of the angular, crenellated
structures that populate the Platonic ideal of the architecture of
defense in the Western image-repertoire, an ideal that had informed the
residually castle-like Battery Potter. Instead, Battery Harris elicits
associations with various forms of spiritual architecture, both
venerative and tombal. The battery’s plan is cruciform, with shortened
transepts like a Latin cross but equidistant “nave” sections, like a
Greek cross. The main nave-like aisle is flanked by small chapel-like
rooms, which were originally used for ammunition storage.
Approaching the battery from the south side (where the gun was),
associative recollections of temples-in-the-round, the Great Stupa at
Sanchi, and the fat, spiraling minaret of the Great Mosque of Samarra
generate. Though Battery Harris’ entrance is at ground level, the entire
structure is essentially underground, as the casemate is covered by a
thin layer of dirt, which has accumulated low but dense maritime
vegetation, identical to that of the surrounding landscape. Thus, the
entire church-like space is in the uncanny state of being at once
underground and at ground level. Entering Battery Harris is not unlike
walking into Philip Johnson’s hill-bound subterranean painting gallery
in New Canaan, CT, or, presumably the Mycenaean Treasury of Atreus (Tomb
of Agamemnon), upon which Johnson’s gallery was based. The
temple-cum-tomb sensibility is apropos, as the museum is itself a sort
of body-less tomb.
After World War II, the guns at Battery Harris remained in place for
only four years, at which point they were sold for scrap metal. Thus the
guns and the casemates were only in place together for seven years.
Fort Tilden was declassified in 1974, and the land and former military
installations were transferred to the National Parks Department.
Battery Harris is open to air on all sides, as the building once
accommodated the direct transport of weapons via rail; tracks still
visibly run through much of the interior and are seemingly still
resurrectably functional. Though all sides of the building could
function as entrances, the building is most dramatically approached from
the south portal, former site of the gun. Visitors would enter RoMoCA
through the south portal under the hood of the casemate. Under this
roof, an existing pavement winds around a circular plaza that once held
the cartridge and gun; this space provides the setting for a gateway
artwork related to the exhibition. The nave-like main corridor provides
a space for the primary gallery for larger works, while the chapel-like
rooms that were originally used for ammunition storage accommodate the
museum’s smaller galleries for drawings and related material, and the
naturally low-light conditions of the cavernous structure provide a
well-adapted setting for projection-oriented exhibitions.
These renderings show Battery Harris in hypothetical exhibition
situations. Renderings conceptualize views of the “transepts” looking
north from the south portal, the “nave” in an exhibition situation, and
the “transpets” depicted in a cross section that demonstrates the
underground nature of the space. The renderings show the rail tracks
being reused for moving plinths for three-dimensional works. Lighting
has been added to the ceiling of the plan, but otherwise the concept is
for a minimally invasive, preservation-minded repurposing of a building
that played a notable role in American history.
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