Thursday, July 17, 2008

Building Blocks

New York is wonderful when you let surprises happen to you. Mad and I had nothing planned and its hot here so our default thing to do is to go to a museum. MOMA is our favorite, Mad likes to sit in the sculpture garden and say hello to the helicopter. We got to see the opening of the exhibit Home Delivery:Fabricating the Modern Dwelling. Go first to the exhibit on the sixth floor the historical perspective is at its best here; complete with a model of a poured in place concrete house designed by none other than Thomas Alva Edison and at the opposite extreme the model of the Teddy Cruz project of housing made out of building refuse-complete with model guys walking up the hill with a door. Mad really got the idea of pre-fab when she saw the case of Legos and building blocks. The houses on 54th Street are an amazing array of the IDEA of pre-fab. I felt a little nervous in some- the "feel" of the houses were distinctly exhibition quality-the lessons of longevity and sustainability are not part of the conversation here. But how wonderful to be in the middle of the summer city and hop in and out of these ideas.

No comments: