All this time while the Spanish glass-and-metal boys Cemusa were zapping street corners with the new bus shelters and newsstands—part of a contract that Mike's City Hall accepted a shitload of money for—it never occurred to me to visit the company's website. But today I did, and now I know why Cemusa is bad for New York.
Why? Because they don't care about New York City, what it is, what it's made of, what the environment is like here. If they did, they wouldn't have given us the same damn shelters and newsstands they gave Spain?
The "street furniture" (awful term) was designed by the Dickensian-sounding Grimshaw Industrial Design. Check out the website and look under "Projects" and then "Full Project List," and click on the Spain street furniture images and then the New York street furniture images. They structures are almost identical. And since the Spain stuff was in place first, one gets the feeling that Cemusa and Grimshaw have just unloaded their stale Spanish leftovers on The Big Apple, which no consideration that our City might deserve its own particular, site-appropriate shelters and newsstands. No, we're just part of the lousy old Global Village, right? so we can take on the same things Madrid did.
Unspecial. Unoriginal. Anti-individualistic. Cemusa and Grimshaw's work is everything New York is not, and should not be.
It is yet another senseless addition to the blandscape in the guise of "good design."
ReplyDeleteCan someone explain to me why bus shelters are necessary at all? Are we all suddenly too cheap to buy umbrellas and too obese to stand? To me, these shelters are more that just ugly, they're pointless.
ReplyDeleteAside from all of this, the structures have real flaws that are embarrassingly obvious and should have been anticipated. They could have fit 2-3 more seats in there, made it more comfortable for a group to stand under them (as it is, only four people, sitting and standing, can be under there without pushing up against each other), and, most importantly, they could have made shelters that actually shield the sun.
ReplyDeleteWhen I first saw the new structures, I thought it was a great idea and was happy to see such modern things going up. But they're poorly done. It's a shame.
CEMUSA is in the business of selling ad space, not sheltering humans from the elements or honoring the unique attributes and character of a city in an effort to elevate it by their involvement. No surprise what their 'furniture' looks like.
ReplyDeleteIT'S A BUSINESS.
ReplyDelete