Floating Gardens of Rock City 1970 63.5 x 53 cm
Collaged newspaper / magazine cuttings mounted on coloured card Exhibited in Propositions for Unrealised Projects Howard Wise Gallery, New York
A set of four collages in which I visualised transforming the top levels of the New York skyscrapers into fantastic walkways spanning the island of Manhattan. I envisaged using film, holography, and giant installations to create fantasies of beaches and jungles. There are also a set of architectural drawings for the project.
The concept was to use the roofs and, at times, one or two top stories of Manhattan buildings as garden platforms in a network of walkways spanning from building to building, where all pedestrian traffic would be moved- cafes, stores, entertainment etc. human life would be sky life.
I have always found the rooftops of the buildings in Manhattan exciting and strange as if their architects had allowed their fantasies free at that distance from the ground. I felt that people should be able to experience them close up. I wanted to liberate people from the canyon walks and the confusion and noise of traffic and allow them to walk in the more salubrious atmosphere at the tops of the buildings. Most important of all, was and still is, the creation of areas where the reality of the city would be replaced by multiple global landscapes so that people might find themselves walking through an imaginary forest or hear the sea pounding on a distant beach, or find themselves suddenly in a different foreign city. This was to be achieved by using three-dimensional image projections and holography onto the buildings or onto especially designed and built installations within the urban framework.
Floating Gardens of Rock City 1970 63.5 x 53 cm
Collaged newspaper / magazine cuttings mounted on coloured card Exhibited in Propositions for Unrealised Projects Howard Wise Gallery, New York
A set of four collages in which I visualised transforming the top levels of the New York skyscrapers into fantastic walkways spanning the island of Manhattan. I envisaged using film, holography, and giant installations to create fantasies of beaches and jungles. There are also a set of architectural drawings for the project.
The concept was to use the roofs and, at times, one or two top stories of Manhattan buildings as garden platforms in a network of walkways spanning from building to building, where all pedestrian traffic would be moved- cafes, stores, entertainment etc. human life would be sky life.
I have always found the rooftops of the buildings in Manhattan exciting and strange as if their architects had allowed their fantasies free at that distance from the ground. I felt that people should be able to experience them close up. I wanted to liberate people from the canyon walks and the confusion and noise of traffic and allow them to walk in the more salubrious atmosphere at the tops of the buildings. Most important of all, was and still is, the creation of areas where the reality of the city would be replaced by multiple global landscapes so that people might find themselves walking through an imaginary forest or hear the sea pounding on a distant beach, or find themselves suddenly in a different foreign city. This was to be achieved by using three-dimensional image projections and holography onto the buildings or onto especially designed and built installations within the urban framework.