Van Alen Institute

The exhibit is both about the process-events, people, organizations-and the design and experience that it led to. The point was not to compare catastrophes, but to compare, contrast, and try to explicate and understand initiatives, projects, plans, and actions that took place after the bomb, the earthquake, the war. After that, what worked, what would they do differently, what mattered right away, what mattered for the long-term? In October, the Institute put out a call for ideas for the exhibit. Students, designers, planners, artists, professors, photographers, public officials and a wide range of respondents from around the world were generous in suggesting places, projects, issues, and designs that were telling for the future of New York. From this response and ongoing research, the Institute chose to focus on specific processes and projects in seven cities.

In Beirut, a public art installation that progressed through the city was a first step in reclaiming its war-torn districts, and the Lebanese capital has continued not only with master plans and major new developments, but also with works such as the Garden of Forgiveness, grappling with a hard history to contemplate. In Berlin, a center for information about the city and its reconstruction rose above the ruins of the Berlin Wall, half a century after the city had been devastated and divided. In San Francisco, an earthquake left the elevated highway downtown in such precarious decision that the city decided to tear it down-and implement a long-held dream of reopening the city to the waterfront. In Kobe, where an earthquake resulted not only in billions of dollars of damage to infrastructure, but also in a terrible loss of life, architects responded with an outpouring of energy to survey the damage and construct innovative emergency housing, proving the old adage that necessity is the mother of invention. In addition, they strove to understand the disaster, building a museum about, and at, the geological fault that brought down so much of their city.

Manchester had a terrorist attack in the mid-1990s, and rebuilt its center city better than before, as well as setting up an institute for the study of cities around the world, to better understand that the life of the city and its public realm can not be taken for granted. So, too, did Oklahoma City, where a public process led to an international design competition for a memorial, and the city has rebuilt itself around it. Sarajevo, after years of civil war, pulled together its citizens through restoring the landmarks of their public life.

There are parallels and opposites, from the different speeds of design and construction to the balance of memory and commerce in a city center. There are new places that manage to succeed at different scales, from huge public events to private moments of daily life, and parks and buildings that are either icons or deliberately everyday. In some cities, the decisions all came from the top, in others there was a more open public process.

New York is in the global sweep of events, and the study room in the exhibit offers an evolving resource of models, maps, and resources regarding the future of the Lower Manhattan, reflecting the Institute's active involvement and partnership with professional, civic, and arts groups in responding to September 11. New York, for all its flaws, is a beacon of the reality and potential of urban life, and in its openness to learning from that world it will rebuild, renew, and remember.

On exhibit at The Lighthouse, Glasgow, Scotland
January 24-March 19, 2003
<click to visit

RENEWING REBUILDING REMEMBERING

New York is unique. Yet like other cities that have been struck by disaster, it will come back. Van Alen Institute has curated Renewing, Rebuilding, Remembering to demonstrate how cities, after incomparable loss of people and places, find ways to plan, design, and reconstruct the life of the city.

In November 2002, "Information Exchange: How Cities Renew, Rebuild and Remember," will be published by the Institute. Both a catalogue and a special edition of our series of "Van Alen Reports," the publication both documents the exhibit and expands on it with personal essays, articles and interviews by:

Diana Balmori, Jon Calame, Angus Gavin, Arnold Hamilton, Nadim Karam, John King, Jack Money, Ferhad Mulabegovic, Joan Ockman, Justin O' Connor, Sherida Paulsen, Yoshiko Sato, Lawrence J. Vale, James E. Young.

This exhibit was on display at the Institute in New York , February - July 2002