The aim of the Studio's proposal is to re-establish the significance of the derelict High Bridge as a historic and cultural point/landmark, which links the Bronx to Manhattan, while making evident the infrastructural damage that this site has been submitted to. High Bridge needs to re-conquer its status as a popular destination, a unique inter-borough crossing, and the Manhattan-Bronx link in the Old Croton Aqueduct Greenway without being oblivious to the historic violence that the river and its shore have been submitted to.
To achieve this, we have aimed to maintain the High Bridge as a pedestrian structure, and the symbolic and physical link between Bronx and Manhattan. This artery of social flow and communication will also function as a connection to the different interventions that will house the art related functions, which in turn will stimulate and offer a critical standpoint to the existing landscape.
Five sites (A, B, C, D and E) have been found which describe a vocabulary of disrupted interventions that have happened through time. All linked to the High Bridge as the main artery and access point, these site are used to resolve cultural spaces and mirror their immediate status. Avoiding the romantic or utopian, we wish the use a critical eye to inform the public, with the very space they enjoy, what their environment has been transformed into. The chosen sites have been the result of past isolation, neglect, displacement and disregard for nature and social needs. We have chosen to turn these results into positive actions. Instead of turning our back to the reality that surrounds these sites, the interventions use this context to generate spaces with consciousness, an architecture which is the physical expression of a history of neglect.
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