"Vertical Urban Factory" Exhibition
Skyscraper Museum
This event has ended.
Vertical Urban Factory surveys more than 30 projects, including canonic examples of Modernism and new or recycled industrial architecture. The installation features over 200 photographs, diagrams, and drawings. Nine architectural models created for the exhibit using state-of the-art computer fabrication highlight a progressive design and construction. A series of films by documentary filmmaker Eric Breitbart use historical and contemporary footage to immerse the gallery visitor in the environment of conveyors systems and industrial processes.
The exhibitionʼs art direction is the work of MGMT Design, known for its innovative installations for New Yorkʼs International Center of Photography and the Museum of Folk Art. For Vertical Urban Factory, the studio has created an annotated timeline of industry and its architecture. Central to the show are sections of refurbished roller conveyors repurposed by Studio Tractor Architects, on which photographs, drawings and architectural models are displayed.
Modern Factories
From Henry Fordʼs Highland Park in Detroit (Albert Kahn, 1910) where the first automated assembly line was instituted, to the Lingotto Fiat factory in Turin, Italy (Giacomo Matte-Trucco, 1922) with its rooftop testing track, to the influential Van Nelle factory in Rotterdam (Brinkman & Van der Vlugt, 1929) which produced coffee, tea, and tobacco—the exhibition examines key projects of Modern architecture, illustrating their functional structure and vertical organization. Re-created for the exhibition is Buckminster Fullerʼs little-known scheme for a vertical cotton mill, designed with students from North Carolina State University in 1952.
Contemporary Factories
Organized around the themes Flexible, Sustainable, and Spectacle, this section is devoted to contemporary projects that illustrate the broad spectrum of factory design today. Flexible factories — usually housed in industrial loft spaces such as those in Hong Kong of the 1960s and 70s, the area known today as Little Addis in Johannesburg, or the American Apparel facility in Los Angeles — create the potential for reintegrating factories into urban centers. Featuring the Valdemingómez recycling plant in Madrid by Ábalos & Herreros, the TGE Plant in New York by Michael Singer, and a new scheme for an Eco-City in Hamburg, Germany, the Sustainable segment demonstrates the viability of ecological industrial systems. Finally, Spectacle exhibits iconic urban factories designed as marketing tools, such as the VW “Transparent Factory” in Dresden, Germany by Henn Architects and the Four Films printing plant in Kuwait by L.E.FT Architects.
Media
Schedule
from January 12, 2011 to June 26, 2011