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Solid Haze
Solid Haze
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Solid Haze
Vertebrae’s entry for the New York City Chinatown Gateway competition addresses the city’s lack of a unifying iconic marker and symbol. Solid Haze proposes a contemporary, abstract version of the ornate symbols currently standing as Chinatown markers. The forty-foot, volumetric archway form cants southeast, gesturing toward the center of Chinatown, simultaneously recognizable and majestic, but also elusive. Sketched out in space, like an artist’s pencil might search out a shape on paper, the gateway changes appearance with the viewer’s position sometimes solid, sometime ethereal. The abstracted symbol embodies cultural diversity, the very blurring of contemporary Chinese and American culture, and the dissolution of boundaries between Chinatown and its adjacent neighbors, Little Italy and the Lower East Side. The hazy resolution also acknowledges the virtual community, the other nearby geographic Chinatown locations of Flushing, Queens and Sunset Park, Brooklyn and the fact that the culture itself is diffusing in the global melting pot. Through its scale and visual tectonics, the sculpture acts as gateway, neighborhood marker, meeting place, and social media opportunity, giving Chinatown an identifying icon while simultaneously giving New York City an additional tourist destination.
This iconic object is positioned on the site to allow full circulation and pedestrian flow as well as group gathering space around the monument. The design satisfies the frequent performance and festival needs of the neighborhood by maintaining open usable space, while the volume framed below the sculpture provides a grand “stage” for performances and events. Interactive, transparent displays inside each column of the sculpture act as future forward, self-help information kiosks, providing digital way-finding and canvases for festivals, events and temporary art installations.
The sculpture is executed with horizontally organized laser-cut planar contours arranged into three layers, one outer layer in black and two inner layers in red.
This iconic object is positioned on the site to allow full circulation and pedestrian flow as well as group gathering space around the monument. The design satisfies the frequent performance and festival needs of the neighborhood by maintaining open usable space, while the volume framed below the sculpture provides a grand “stage” for performances and events. Interactive, transparent displays inside each column of the sculpture act as future forward, self-help information kiosks, providing digital way-finding and canvases for festivals, events and temporary art installations.
The sculpture is executed with horizontally organized laser-cut planar contours arranged into three layers, one outer layer in black and two inner layers in red.
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