I was the only one there – mammoth // building nothing out of something

I was the only one there

4 Responses to “I was the only one there”

  1. faslanyc says:

    Funny, i just walked that Friday. With the nice weather it’s been getting lots of use. Some of those details are already causing problems (the benches are too delicate and are showing it after only 6 months, the fountain doesn’t work and is being ripped up, it has a 4.5 million annual maintenance budget).

    that noted, it is very beautiful, and views along that stroll are refreshing. I would imagine it’s better when you are the only one there, as you can actually appreciate the views more. that’s been my experience.

  2. Stephen says:

    Yeah, I was visiting with a friend a couple weeks ago and we made a quick trip. It was my first time visiting it. Not much of a surprise that it was empty on a rainy (which isn’t too obvious from the poor camera-phone pictures) Monday morning.

    It’s an interesting place – certainly pleasant to walk through. I couldn’t help but continue to think of it as a missed opportunity, but we’ve talked about that already.

    I’ve never understood how this counts as a landscape urbanist project, other than the fact that everyone kept saying it is because James Corner helped. It seems like an interesting case study on how to build something designed to make one of the spendiest real estate areas in the world worth even more, but the Wunderkammer story linked above does a good job of showing why this can’t really be applied anywhere else. It’s an infrastructure for equity urbanism; I’m not sure what it does beyond increase already phenomenal property values through its landmark marketability.

    Or maybe I’m just mad because I can’t bring my dogs.

  3. Tim says:

    Was interesting to read faslanyc’s comment about the benches and fountain not making the grade. Does anyone have any details of how and why they’re failing. I can’t nip round and have a look because I’m in the UK :-)