Bathtub Flower Planters in Williamsburg - Sterile Design on Roosevelt Island
I was recently walking down one of my favorite streets in Williamsburg, Grand & Havermeyer, when I came across these colored bathtub flower planters which brought a smile to my face and to those walking by at the same time as well. This is the type of creative and whimsical street design that makes urban living interesting and is sorely lacking on the mostly sterile Roosevelt Island.
The only exception to Roosevelt Island's lack of creative design elements are the Marriage of Real Estate and Money sculptures located in the East River near the Manhattan Park swimming pool by Tom Otterness that are quite delightful.
Images by Oren SlorIt would be a great public service to Roosevelt Island if RIOC and/or property owners such as Hudson/Related, Manhattan Park, Octagon and the WIRE buildings would encourage more unique and creative design for our benches, garbage receptacles, storefronts etc. Just like the Williamsburg bathtub flower planters.
9 comments :
Let me get this straight. You think a bathtub planter is good design and the Franklin Roosevelt Memorial designed by Louis Kahn is BAD design?
What else can we expect the populace to clamor for? Pink plastic flamingoes on the lawn.
Please let's have a sense of proportion here. One thing has nothing to do with the other.
The bathtub flower planters are quirky and fun, take up a tiny amount of space and and would not not replace anything other than similar but institutional looking objects such as benches, garbage cans, flower planters etc.
The Louis Kahn memorial is a huge 3 acre site replacing parkland with granite and stone and destroys one-of-a-kind gorgeous panoramic views of NYC and the East River waterfront. The architect for the project admitted that the panoramic view from the sloping lawn would be lost and, incredibly, thinks that is a "sophisticated" design element. I guess I am just too artistically illiterate to appreciate the design.
Why so much emphasis on the panoramic view? Does anybody really care that you will not be able to see Manhattan AND Queens by just turning 180 degrees? Who really looks East when at Southpoint Park? If you want to see both go to the most southern tip.
Its no wonder poster 1 favors the Kahn Memorial, it is as inapposite and incongruous on that part of Roosevelt Island (or indeed any part of Roosevelt Island) as the outdated plastic flamingoes he uses for his frame of reference.
As far as the comment on who actually looks at the views - all the people in LIC, Brooklyn, NJ and Manhattan who pay so much to see them from their homes, terraces and neighborhoods.
JMBO
From an environmental and cultural perspective, many of the RELEVANT experts (including the Municipal Arts Society, Waterfront Alliance)now believe making the waterfront accessible and an integral part of the communities in which they are located, is far more desirable to constructing artificial barriers between the community and the water's edge. They point to the construction of the FDR and West Side Highways as examples of wrongfully cutting off the communities from the waterfront which should no longer be followed. The inception of the Kahn Memorial is closer in time to the construction of those projects, and the thinking which precipitated them, than to the present day.
When the Kahn design was commissioned, the Island was still called Welfare Island and had not yet been developed for residential use. The Island has changed dramatically over the past 35 years - the Kahn design has not.
Also - in looking carefully at the Kahn design plans contained inthe Louis Kahn Collection, there is NOT one row of trees, but 2 or 3 rows separating the park from the water AND the section at the end where the Memorial is to be located has concrete walls on 3 sides, so the only view there, in that small semi-enclosed area - is straight down river.
Good Job! :)
Its really innovative way.. I am heading to Williamsburg and during my travel i will surely see such bath tub flower planters. i reached here by search8ng about bath tubs.
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