Architecture

It was Memorial Day when we visited the Dwight D. Eisenhower Library and Museum in his home town of Abilene, Kansas. It seemed like stepping back in a time machine as so little has changed in this middle American hamlet since he left to become the savior of democracy and a leader of the free world. The heart of the complex of five buildings is the modest family home where he was raised as one of seven brothers by fundamentalist parents.

In an historic decision for the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Board of Trustees has voted unanimously to break ground on a new museum building in downtown Manhattan in May 2011. Located in the Meatpacking District on Gansevoort Street between West Street and the High Line, the six-floor, 195,000-square-foot building, designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Renzo Piano, will provide the Whitney with essential new space for its collection, exhibitions, and education and performing arts programs in one of New York’s most vibrant neighborhoods.

The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and its satellite in Long Island City, P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, joined together to address one of the most urgent challenges facing, New York, the nation’s largest city: sea-level rise resulting from global climate change. Five interdisciplinary teams were brought together to re-envision the coastlines of New York and New Jersey around New York Harbor. Their task was to imagine new ways to occupy the harbor itself with adaptive “soft” infrastructures that are sympathetic to the needs of a sound ecology of one of New York’s great open spaces. The current MoMA exhibit establishes the dialogue on this potentially dangerous topic.

Originally constructed in the 1930s to lift dangerous freight trains off Manhattan's streets, the High Line is an abandoned elevated train track. When completed, this piece of dormant infrastructure will be a 1.5 mile public park running through Manhattan's Lower West Side neighborhoods. Created as an integrated landscape, designed by landscape architects James Corner Field Operations, with architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro, the High Line combines meandering concrete pathways with naturalistic plantings. It is already an urban jewel.

Following a thirteen day siege by a Mexican army the small mission turned fort, The Alamo, fell with loss of its some 200 defenders. The battle cry "Remember the Alamo" inspired the troops of General Sam Houston. A short time after the Alamo tragedy Texans won independence from Mexico in 1836. By 1845 Texas ceded to the United States with Houston as its first of two senators. After a tour of the Alamo we chilled out with lunch along the lovely and scenic San Antonio River Walk.

The Williams J. Clinton Presidential Center and Park sits on 7 acres just a short walk from the dining and entertainment area of Little Rock, Arkansas. The box like design by Polshek Partnership. LLP canitlevers toward the Arkansas River and an old railroad bridge. Locals call it the Clinton Double Wide for its unremarkable prefab look.

The Mount, the stately home of Edith Wharton in Lenox, Mass.. reopens for a season of new programs and audience favorites. Highlights include the launch of The Mount's first annual writers festival, Berkshire WordFest (July 23-25); the return of theatre for the second year running in partnership with Wharton Salon (August 18-29); the seventeenth season of The Mount's popular Biography Series (July 12-August 30); and a new exhibit on adaptations of Wharton's works for stage and screen (opens June 5).

Rather than being torn down a former elevated train line is now a delightful park threading through Chelsea. It is an outstanding example of urban recycling. It is a great way to take a break during a Chelsea gallery tour.

Last fall, SHIFTboston ran a competition to look at different ways to "move" the City of Boston in the 21st Century. Mark Favermann wrote a critical review of the finalists and winners. In response, the organization's executive director Kim Poliquin has written a different perspective about this urban design creative exercise. Critic Favermann answers.