Notes on the Acropolis

Jerome Haferd

Notes on the Acropolis

different times. What is remarkable about the Acropolis is not that all of these users inhabit this vertical section but that they do so at the same time and with undetermined, ever-evolving relationships to one another.

Readings

Harlem’s Marcus Garvey Park Acropolis also known as Mount Morris is an exceptional instance of an alternative space for social dynamics in the city. The Acropolis rises out of the quotidian gridwork of East Harlem, paradoxically positioning itself as both community center and marginal space. The natural schist rock formation is traversed by a classical promenade of stairs and landings as well as the improvised paths of its users. The idealized plan of terraces is bent repeatedly in order to adjust to the natural topography, resulting in a hybrid between the formal and the topographic. At the summit, the mountain culminates in a flattened elliptical plinth, which is capped by a historic Watchtower.1 The visual and circulatory connections between the different layers of the Acropolis reveal an urbanism counter to that of the surrounding planimetric city in which the park’s heterogeneous user groups interact and negotiate spatially through section.

Harlem’s Marcus Garvey Park Acropolis also known as Mount Morris is an exceptional instance of an alternative space for social dynamics in the city. The Acropolis rises out of the quotidian gridwork of East Harlem, paradoxically positioning itself as both community center and marginal space. The natural schist rock formation is traversed by classical promenade of stairs and landings as well as the improvised paths of its users. The idealized plan of terraces is bent repeatedly in order to adjust to the natural topography, resulting in a hybrid between the formal and the topographic. At the summit, the mountain culminates in a flattened elliptical plinth, which is capped by historic Watchtower. The visual and circulatory connections between the different layers of the Acropolis reveal an urbanism counter to that of the surrounding planimetric city in which the park’s heterogeneous user groups interact and negotiate spatially through section.

The current ecology of participants includes the two extremes of casual outsiders and frequenting residents, whereby the threedimensional “architecture” of the Acropolis is appropriated in careful calibration of visual and spatial boundaries. The former comprises both local and global tourists, and the latter includes drug traffic lookouts, men cruising for sex, and Drummer’s Circle made up mostly of African and Latino residents from the surrounding community. Each group can be roughly characterized by different visual and physical occupations of the site. Flâneurs and visitors move through the system periodically and randomly, spatially pushing and pulling on the more established user groups. Lookouts are stationary and constant, using precise visual alleys of desired height and length that determine their favorite spots. Cruisers use self-designated areas as well as ad-hoc semi-protected areas at

The current ecology of participants includes the two extremes of casual outsiders and frequenting residents, whereby the threedimensional “architecture” of the Acropolis is appropriated in a careful calibration of visual and spatial boundaries. The former comprises both local and global tourists, and the latter includes drug traffic lookouts, men cruising for sex, and a Drummer’s Circle made up mostly of African and Latino residents from the surrounding community. Each group can be roughly characterized by different visual and physical occupations of the site. Flâneurs and visitors move through the system periodically and randomly, spatially pushing and pulling on the more established user groups. Lookouts are stationary and constant, using precise visual alleys of desired height and length that determine their favorite spots. Cruisers use self-designated areas as well as ad-hoc semi-protected areas at different times. What is remarkable about the Acropolis is not that all of these users inhabit this vertical section but that they do so at the same time and with undetermined, ever-evolving relationships to one another.

This informal in-the-round urbanism is reminiscent of earlier twentieth-century, avantgarde imaginings such as Hans Hollein’s Überbauung ‘sculpture cities’ abstract collages of floating urban megastructures that resemble geological features in scale and formal character. Conceived as architectural “manifestos” against Modernism, these conceptual formations could support activities and behavior outside the range of those found in the ‘functionalist’ city. New York City parks derived from extreme topographical difference act as figures of resistance, by their very nature and function, to the Manhattan grid. The anomalous topography and diversity of park spaces lend themselves to spatial appropriation of a different kind.

This informal in-the-round urbanism is reminiscent of earlier twentieth-century, avantgarde imaginings such as Hans Hollein’s Überbauung ‘sculpture cities’ abstract collages of floating urban megastructures that resemble geological features in scale and formal character. Conceived as architectural “manifestos” against Modernism, these conceptual formations could support activities and behavior outside the range of those found in the ‘functionalist’ city. New York City parks derived from extreme topographical difference act as figures of resistance, by their very nature and function, to the Manhattan grid. The anomalous topography and diversity of park spaces lend themselves to spatial appropriation of different kind. A critique of grid-based urbanism, which has long been dominant in America, is that it absorbs difference and passively normalizes heterogeneity. In the topographic space of an environment like Marcus Garvey Park (that which is organized by differentiation in slope) rather than striated space (that which is organized by a metric overlay) one notices that political space is re-instantiated, where individuals and groups are introduced into mutual awareness and negotiation. Becoming more sophisticated in spatial vocabularies like those found on the Acropolis could allow for the concerns of the marginalized to be more intentionally synthesized into the mainstream when designing public space.

A critique of grid-based urbanism, which has long been dominant in America, is that it absorbs difference and passively normalizes heterogeneity. In the topographic space of an environment like Marcus Garvey Park (that which is organized by differentiation in slope) rather than striated space (that which is organized by a metric overlay) one notices that a political space is re-instantiated, where individuals and groups are introduced into mutual awareness and negotiation. Becoming more sophisticated in spatial vocabularies like those found on the Acropolis could allow for the concerns of the marginalized to be more intentionally synthesized into the mainstream when designing public space.

Puzzle Figures

Souvenir Model and Drawings for New New York Icons, Group Exhibition, Storefront for Art & Architecture (2017)

Harlem’s Mt. Morris ‘Acropolis’ is not a singular monolith, but a heterogeneous one. Situated in Marcus Garvey Park, the iconic hard/soft rock, stone paths, and foliage produce a three-dimensional form that is acted upon by different users and environmental forces. Some describe the mountain as a ruin, but it is better understood as contested ground. The ruin is not picturesque but rather a political state(ment) of neglect and urban erosion.

Like the Acropolis of Athens, Mt. Morris is a meld of the human-altered and the pre-historic - the architectural and the geological. The cartesian Manhattan grid is left behind and becomes instead a three-dimensional compositional logic converging on a single point - the Harlem Fire Watchtower. The Watchtower is a symbol for the community; and is currently in a state of temporary absence as many await its rehabilitation and return.

In souvenir form, Marcus Garvey Park’s mountain is represented as a constructed nature of three-dimensional tiles, held by the tower “pin” at the center. The iconic Fire Watchtower and Acropolis act as a “key”, locking the abstracted puzzle of topography into place. Puzzle Figures themselves are produced by a three-dimensional interlocking spatial logic which starts at the tower. The finished product embodies the ever-changing quality of this hybrid and urban topography / strata while celebrating the architectural potential which lies within.

folly/follies

Curtain (2012), Parting (2013)

The folly pavilion series start from a play or ‘troubling’ of the 25 square grid. The invention of the spatial system lies in the coupling of a ‘soft’ material to a rigid but playful underlying structure that transforms via opening ‘beads’. There are only three primary components which make up the architecture; the frame made of wood; steel joints that connect; and the curtain of plastic chain that is then draped. The wooden structure follows a game of rise and fall and the beads provide enclosure. This armature forms a series of frames.

Fantasy lies in the effect(s) created by the plastic chain-link, as it dances across this ghost-like shape in three dimensions. Neither truly hard or truly soft, the repetition of these floor-to-ceiling strands creates a means by which the same system is experienced in several different ways. The overall 25 square is a play between ‘curtain walls’ and fixed boundaries. Some are loose at the ground, while the remaining courses of chain-link are fixed and relatively static. The operable partitions can be played with, pulled back, and passed through. This gives the otherwise rigid system it’s crucial transformative quality and responsive to its siting.

The first version of this fanciful structure, titled Curtain, was proposed and erected in partnership with Socrates Sculpture Park and the Architectural League of New York. The “rules” of the game for this project were designed to explore architecture and form making. These rules are denied, played with, and transformed by the interaction of the folly with its site and users.

The follies are conceived of as part of an iterative series or code, with the ability to transform based on different local conditions.

The second in the series, Parting, changed form to incorporate a path to meander through, and respond to the surrounding context.