Debating New York’s Skyline: Evolving or Embalmed?
The New York Landmarks Conservancy and The Municipal Art Society of New York (MAS) brought together leading experts in architecture and the history of New York City for a timely discussion on the changes and challenges brought by new skyscrapers on New York City’s iconic skyline.
Moderator Paul Goldberger, architecture critic for The New Yorker
Kenneth T. Jackson, the Jacques Barzun Professor of History and the Social Sciences, Columbia University
Phyllis Lambert, founding director and chair of the Board of Trustees, Canadian Centre for Architecture
Dinu Bumbaru, policy director of Héritage Montréal and former secretary general of ICOMOS
From left: Héritage Montréal Board Members Carole Deniger and Luce Lafontaine, Landmarks Conservancy Director of Public Policy Andrea Goldwyn, Conservancy Director of Sacred Sites Program Ann-Isabel Friedman, past Héritage Montréal Board Member Marie-Odile Trépanier, Conservancy Director of Technical Services Center Alex Herrera, Conservancy President Peg Breen, and policy director of Héritage Montréal and former secretary general of ICOMOS Dinu Bumbaru
The New York Landmarks Conservancy and the Municipal Art Society of New York recently brought together leading experts in architecture and the history of New York City for a timely discussion on the changes and challenges brought by new skyscrapers and their impact on New York City’s iconic skyline. Plans for two new buildings (15 Penn Plaza and Tower Verre) have raised questions on how new construction affects the skyline as well as whether or how it should be preserved.
Moderator Paul Goldberger, architecture critic for The New Yorker, introduced the speakers to a full audience at the CUNY Graduate Center and set the stage for what turned out to be a lively debate.
“The skyline is not only an amalgam of things, it is a thing itself. That even though it was not made to be a composition, it is one and perhaps as such it might deserve the same kind of protection that we all agree should be conferred upon our most important buildings and historic districts.“
Phyllis Lambert, who served as the Director of Planning for the Seagram Building, and is founding director and chair of the Board of Trustees, Canadian Centre for Architecture, argued in favor of protecting the skyline.
“If you say that you are going to landmark certain buildings and you have a building like Seagram or you have a building like Empire State—keep a little clearing around it. There ought to be some way of isolating those things, not in a baroque way, but there has got to be a way to nurture an environment, which a building is set and I think that is a hugely important thing,“ Lambert said.
“It is not only what you see from the skyline but it is also what you walk next to and the views you have.“
Kenneth T. Jackson, the Jacques Barzun Professor of History and the Social Sciences, Columbia University, agreed that the concept of preservation is a good one and allowing parts of the past to be integrated into the present is important, but pointed out doing so not only is challenging, it risks “museumification” of the city as in places such as Savannah, Georgia and Paris.
“The problem is whose past, who chooses, whose interests are being served. Interpretations of what is aesthetically good and bad are subjective and even experts have biases. Often privilege, wealth and social class benefit disproportionately from preservation or for creating history from a particular point of view,“ Jackson said.
“This metropolis constantly changes. ‘Successful’ [economic] cities I would argue are places that change. A city that does not encourage change becomes moribund. Change is the lifeblood of greatness. Even the term ‘city’ cannot be a fixed notion, but its interpretive. Cities are organic. Thus in a real sense history is for losers,“ the historian said.
Dinu Bumbaru, policy director of Héritage Montréal and former secretary general of ICOMOS, identified the city’s cultural heritage as perhaps the ‘common ground’ between those who seek change in the city’s skyline and those who wish to protect it.
“It’s difficult because are you going to actually measure the line where the sky meets the town? That’s a bit tricky because of course with time and change perhaps it will expand a little bit and if you don’t put a buffer you will lose your edge. Or do you have it as a balance between objective and qualified? That’s where perhaps there is the common ground between people who enjoy change and people who are interested in a bit of change,” Bumbaru said.
“Like we love trees—there is not a single day where a tree is the same, but somehow every year it is the same tree that we look at and we feel quite comfortable about having that kind of growth that is constructed. For me it calls for the questions: how do we define and also who cares for it.”
The evening raised many provocative questions that do not have easy answers. As plans for new development across the City move forward we will continue to pursue this critical issue.
Also, three days after the debate, Dinu Bumbaru and members of Héritage Montreal Board of Directors visited the Conservancy office to exchange views and issues in both cities.
