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Diane
Lewis: Inside-Out. Architecture New York City, by
Diane Lewis.
Diane Lewis is described by Richard
Meier -- whose office Lewis worked in for a few years --
in the preface to this monograph on her work as "a
sort of living embodiment" of The
Cooper Union, the New York City institution she graduated
from in the mid-70s and has taught
at for the last 25+ years. A school known for its tuition-free
status more than anything, graduates from the architecture
program exhibit certain traits, including a solid grasp
of tectonics, strong conceptual bases for projects, excellent
delineation skills, and an embrace of the poetic and the
influence of that which lies outside/beyond the confines
of architecture. These traits stem primarily from John
Hejduk, dean of The School of Architecture from 1972
until his death in 2000. Hejduk built little but influenced
many with his drawings, words, and strong passion for education.
Looking at the projects presented
in this monograph of Lewis's work from 1984-2006 -- projects
ranging from residential and gallery interiors to unbuilt
designs for museums, plazas, and even New York City, where
most of these, as the book's title suggests, are located
-- this influence is evident but not prescriptive enough
to limit the personal character of her designs. A map of
plans at the beginning of the book gives the reader an all-in-one
look at her projects over 23 years. One notes certain things:
the consistent level of quality of the plans, the underlying
grids that speak of continuity of surface and space, and
the circles/curves that exist as exclamation points in each
plan's otherwise orthogonal composition. What is not apparent
is the relationship between her designs and the context,
both physical and historical. Where this relationship does
come across is the photographs of the completed buildings
and models of unbuilt projects. In each case it's clear
that dealing with this context is very important to Lewis,
her designs adding a new layer of modernist architecture
to the historical layers that exist.
Lewis's project (unfortunately unbuilt)
for the Kunsthalle on East Fifth Street near The Cooper
Union is easily one of her strongest project and one that
illustrates her designs skills and view of history. The
former Beethoven Hall, a masonry shell dramatically open
to the sky when Lewis encountered it, would have received
a 27,000sf (2,500sm) mixed-use arts complex within its walls,
weaving old and new together in a manner that would have
yielded a rich symbiosis. Lewis saw the project as a means
for artists to experience the authentic character and places
of the Lower East Side, though as the area became NoHo and
the residential market boomed, the building instead became
apartments,
a far-less creative use of the historically-rich shell.
These and other projects show a
New York City that is and that could have been. As Daniel
Sherer describes in his closing essay, Lewis combines the
"purity of the modernist utopian" with "a
complex enchainment of memories" to create a subtle,
yet singular and unique architecture.
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