The contested park is recasted as a spatial construct of assembly that aims to transmit its profound history. Reconceptualizing The Urban Artifact is a thesis project by Syracuse alumn Ricardo Rodriguez.The project reconsiders Aldo Rossi’s notion of the ‘Urban Artifact’ thought as an object and rather proposes it as a spatial endeavor embedded in the structural context and urban life experience of the city.
Challenged with the need of signifying Washington Square Park’s history without proposing an object in the public space. Ricardo imagines a park archive influenced by New York City’s underground infrastructure and the Park’s daily political and cultural activities.The project proposes a cultural program based on embedding key historical events into multiple architectural elements. Among some of these: a platform for the Grand Closing to Traffic event, Bob Dylan’s fountain, and a room memorial for the garment workers of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire.
Ricardo says that not only would the past influence and propel the political and cultural activities of the present, but that a project like this would also retell the story of the park. A story about an ever-changing community that reclaimed their public space.The project doesn’t propose an architecture of the city, but instead an architecture IN the city constructed out of the void space of the city and its users.
