A Vision of New York City: 2080 AD

Most exhibits at the Museum of Modern Art in New York focus on the achievements contemporary artists. But a new exhibit takes an intriguing look into New York City's future. The exhibit "Rising Currents: Projects for New York's Waterfront" examines how the city will respond to the predicted rise in sea levels over the next seventy years. The images of the hypothetical New York of 2080 look like an abandoned city, with nature reclaiming the land once inhabited by human beings, but the project is actually the result of the combined efforts of several landscape design and architecture companies. Concept sketches show a dramatically altered New York City waterfront, with swamp and wetlands reclaiming portions of Manhattan. The exhibit demonstrates how green technology can integrate with urban environments, and New York Times architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff lauds the project as "the most coherent model we have for a sustainable city in the current century." So will New York City look like in 2080?

The New York City of the future will utilize several new green technologies to protect and renovate the city in a changing world. Some of the proposals provide practical solutions to serious problems. One proposal suggest that in the New York of the future streets of will not be made of asphalt or concrete, but from a porous material designed to absorb and collect rain water. Other ideas include the construction of a bio-fuel plant in Bayonne, New Jersey, and an artificial reef system off the coast of New York harbor. Some concepts presented in the exhibit seem a little more preposterous. A couple of the more farfetched plans include converting the Gowanus Canal into an oyster farm, and off-shore housing developments built on artificial islands. Most of the proposal would greatly alter the landscape, and the proposed New York of 2080 looks radically different from the New York of the 20th century. But the exhibition on display at the Museum of Modern Art effectively demonstrates the challenges the city faces and how it will have to change during the next century.

Global warming and rising sea levels will not only have a dramatic affect on New York's environment, but its economy as well. Melting ice caps may open a trans-arctic shipping passage by the middle of the twenty-first century, seriously jeopardizing New York City's position as an international shipping capital. In order to thrive in the twenty-first century, New York will have to re-envision itself in order to adapt to a changing world. The projects and design elements presented in the exhibit provide interesting solutions to the problems facing many modern cities, but the draw of the 'Rising Currents' exhibit is the compelling vision of the future that it offers. Museums strive to preserve our cultural heritage for future generations, but in this instance a museum has taken a look in to the future to inform and educate the public about the impact of climate change and the importance of developing green technology.

Works Cited
Ouroussoff, Nicolai. "Imagining a More Watery New York." New York Times. March 26, 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/26/arts/design/26rising.html

Museum Architecture

The museums built in the 19th century reflect their stature as temples of knowledge, and their architecture reflects this perception in neo-classical and neo-gothic designs. In the twentieth century, museum architects began to strike out beyond those early temple and cathedral models (Geibelhausen 41-47). Among the museum buildings built in the latter half of the twentieth century, the Edo-Tokyo Museum stands out as a striking example of modern museum architecture. Located in Tokyo's metropolitan district of Ryōgoku, the museum's ultra-modern architectural design fits right in with the surrounding buildings. Edo-Tokyo Museum is built uniquely elevated above the ground, the landmark feature of the museum's design. The museum's website explains the design is an interpretation of a traditional elevated warehouse in Japan. Visitors access the museum through a tunnel-like escalator running underneath of the building. But the Museum's modern facade is only the casing which holds the treasures within. The contemporary architecture and radical design of the building's exterior is similar to many modern art museums, but the building's interior design and exhibit content is contrastingly traditional.

The people who visit the Edo-Tokyo Museum find themselves submerged in the last 500 years of Tokyo's history. Edo-Tokyo Museum was established in 1993, its purpose being "to preserve the historical heritage of Edo-Tokyo"(Edo-Tokyo Museum Website). The museum's exhibits move visitors through the nation's Shogunal and Imperial past, and in to Japan's transition to the modern era. The institution serves not only as a museum with collection and exhibitions, but also as a cultural center for public education. Because of this aspect of their mission, the museum boasts an impressive library that contains over 140,000 volumes on Japanese history and culture, most of which are available to the public (Edo-Tokyo Museum Website). The Edo-Tokyo Museum's mission as a cultural center expands on role of museums in society, and is indicative of the changing nature of museums in the 20th and 21st centuries.

Works Cited

Geibelhausen, Michaela. The Architecture IS the Museum, from Marstine, Janet, ed. New Museum Theory and Practice: An Introduction. (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2006), 41-60

The Edo-Tokyo Museum. Edo-Tokyo Museum, http://www.edo-tokyo-museum.or.jp/english/index.html

When museum directors consider what exactly makes their museums successful, they tend to look at their many objectives. These objectives typically include the conservation of their collections, education value of their exhibits, and public enjoyment. What exactly museums consider quality and success may vary from museum to museum, depending on their exact mission statement. However, the museum director's perspective differs widely from the public's point of view. For the public, a museum is successful if the visitor leaves with a lasting impression of the museum's contents and intent. While the collected objects in the exhibition are the focusing point of a typical museum visit, other factors such as architecture and other design elements can enhance or diminish the visitor's museum experience. In particular, the buildings museums occupy establish the way in which a visitor experiences the exhibition. The structure of a museum can guide visitors through exhibits by moving them along carefully connected rooms and corridors, or allowing them to move freely through open space.

E.T. Linenthal's book Preserving Memory examined how the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. guides their visitors through an exhibit which advances the narrative of the Holocaust as the visitor progresses through the museum. This method of moving visitor's through an exhibit work well in this instance, since the Holocaust Museum has a narrative to present that the visitors move through. But such an orderly and structured system is not as conducive for the objectives other museums. Art museums, for instance, might want their attendants to take their time as and appreciate the art on display in the museum, and might find moving their visitors through their museum like cattle contradictory to their objectives. Instead, an art museum might consider large open galleries, like those in the Seattle Art Museum. The large open spaces and allows visitors to take their time with any given gallery or pieces of work, without having visitors feel like there is something they need to see next or move on to. Both methods are very effective at achieving the goals their museums have set, it is important to remember how the structure of an exhibit, and the museum as a whole, affects the experience of the visitors.