Shaping the future

Magnet #708 - Eero Saarinen's Gateway to the West Arch

Earlier this week, some random Tweet popped up about the Eero Saarinen exhibit leaving the Museum of the City of New York on January 31st. I didn't even know it was around, and it's been here since November!

But, yay for that random Tweet, because I squeezed it in this morning, and I'm so very glad I did. Loved it. I think what I like about architectural retrospectives are the cool building models. I just love looking at the cool fake buildings. Granted, every time I see them, I think of Michelle Pfeiffer running around New York City trying to repair her own building model, and then ending the night kissing George Clooney in One Fine Day, but there really is something neat about being able to draw something, and then getting it built.

Of course, today was one of the last gallery tours, which means they were inundated with people, and it was hard to enjoy the tour because of all the bodies. But MCNY did a fantastic job setting up the exhibition. Apparently, it's been traveling since 2006, and when it leaves here, it heads for Yale to close out the 4-year-tour.

His work covers a very specific time - the 1950s (and early 60s) - that's when he was most successful, working for prominent corporations and individuals, before he passed away way too young at 51. For those of you who haven't seen Eero Saarinen's work (not to be confused with his pop, Eliel Saarinen), you totally, totally have. If you've seen the Arch in St. Louis on this magnet, you have. If you've ever flown out of Dulles, you have. If you've seen one of those cool Knoll womb chairs, you have.

It's weird how I didn't know how much of his work I've seen before. But, I was quite charmed by the fact that in addition for having designed their technical building (the supercool blue on in this blogpost) , he als0 did a ton of corporate design work for IBM - product brochures and even the neat 1964 World's Fair IBM egg.

I'm sad I didn't get to spend more time reading all the placards and looking at the models, I really just buzzed right through. Otherwise, I'd probably still be rattling off many more facts and figures and quotes and buildings than you wanted to know.

I guess it's not for everyone, as I had to dodge the guy sleeping in his wheelchair...and that was even before we entered the exhibition space!

Happy Mannahatta Day!

Magnet #568 - "De Wit View" New Amsterdam, 1672

Another reason to love this town. Happy 400th, New York! Apparently, it's the week that Henry Hudson arrived in New York Harbor on his Dutch ship the Halve Maen ("Half Moon"). He was looking for Asia. He got us!

NY400 Week is a weeklong celebration to honor the city's Dutch ancestry - with supercool events and festivities all around town. Love it. Seriously. I live for extremely well-coordinated, nicely branded, multifaceted, multifacilitied events like this. What? I do!

Take for example, today. I went over to the Museum of the City of New York, where you can spend hours just looking at all the cool NYC stuff. In addition to the superfab photography installations, they've got this really well-done new multimedia presentation called Timescape, where Stanley Tucci takes you through the history of the City from when the Lenapes (Len-AH-pays, what, it was a museum, I totally learned stuff and now I'm sharing!) got hoodwinked sold the island of Mannahatta to Peter Minuit in 1626, for something like 60 guilders ($24 bucks).

There's also a smells-like-new-cuz-it-supertotally-is exhibit space about Henry Hudson's Amsterdam and New Amsterdam. Which has a model of the Halve Maen, plus some really cool stuff they dug up downtown. No, really.

And, there's the Mannahatta Project that takes you back in time (with bears and beavers and really looks-cooler-than-you'd-think-cuz-it-supertotally-is giant lightboxes) to what our little island looked like back in the day. Finally, a nod to the Dutch, where they selected a few Dutch photogs to run around the city taking pictures. Great stuff.

MCNY was just my first stop. After picking up this neat magnet of 1672 new Amsterdam in the still-too-small-for-its-space-cuz-it-supertotally-is little shop, I flew through the exhibits again to actually see it for myself.

Didn't see it, so I gave up and moved on down to the Met, to go see the Vermeer exhibit. Very crowded, but well worth the fighting. Awesome exhibit. And I'm not a big Vermeer fan - in fact, there's a part of me that's thinking he's the new Degas in my book. Great artist, a touch of the dirrrty. Don't deny it.

And then, as I was walking through one of the NYC historical imagery galleries, I found the color version of this image on this magnet!

Woot. Mystery solved: Apparently the watercolor of this thing is sitting up in The Hague, and shows New Amsterdam at about 1650, complete with natural shoreline. You can even see a small dock and crane right in the center!

What I really like about this view, is that you can see the packet ships, the cargo ships, and the little Native American ships all sharing the harbor's waterways. Kinda like now, only with the Water Taxis, scary speedboats and ferries.

It's why I can't wait until tomorrow, because apparently they're gonna do some big "Holland on the Hudson" Flotilla thing in the Harbor tomorrow for NY Harbor Day. So damn cool.

I love this town!

Although, I won't lie. The entire time I was lookin' at old-timey etchings, sketches, paintings, photos, etc., I was thinking that cuteboy Nikolaj Coster-Waldau's Nick from New Amsterdam (the Fox show that should have stayed on longer) would have totally been identifying his pals in each of those images!