Good ingredients

August, 2011

On a trip to New York, Integrated Design Commissioner Tim Horton muses on what the renovated Meatpacking District has learnt from Italian cuisine, and what we can learn from both.

Parallels between food and architecture are often drawn. But after a week in the Meatpacking District of New York – located in the shadow of the sublime Highline project – another analogy came to mind. There’s a shift towards an architecture of simplicity, of the single, powerful idea and the essential qualities that come from working with a more restrained palette.
When I first visited New York 17 years ago, the renewal of the Meatpacking District was an emerging work. Even New York struggled at the time for models to work from. The city’s typologies were fixed; the tall building, the townhouse, the mid-rise of West Village. Wider still, the Brooklyn brownstone.
Perhaps as a result of my conditioning, it seemed back then that architects were adept at delivering on the corporate ambitions of clients for tall buildings. The gleaming, sculpted forms of Skidmore Owings & Merrill, Kohn Pedersen Fox, the fading light of I M Pei all dominated the skyline. In fact, the skyline was the thing. Any interest in the street seemed a bi-product.
But the really exciting work today is occurring in the mid-scale projects catering to the new residential market (NYC’s strategic plan forecasts an additional one million residents by 2030) and at street level. Thanks to the investment in the Highline, much of the surge in the market is in its “splash zone”.
Take the yet to be completed, almost-transparent chrysalis by Neil Denari; poised over the 23rd St lawn on DS+R’s exquisite Highline. Or the absolute restraint of Shigeru Ban’s Metal Shutter House (said to be a defence against the highly reflective facade of Jean Nouvel’s 100 Eleventh Avenue ‘Vision Machine’ across the road). Both buildings are anything but generic or standard. Both are deeply considered and elegantly respectful of the Manhattan grid. Both sit at about the 10-storey mark. Both combine clear and legible planning with inventive facades that explain their purpose.
Another stand-out in the precinct is the gentle revival of the street experience through the revitalisation of its shopfronts, often within nondescript buildings from another time. Again, often with the Highline as its benefactor.
On W 14th St there is a cluster that sums it up. About four to six storeys in height, they were once what? Administration for food manufacturing and allied industries? Not far from here is where the Nabisco biscuit works first began production; something the nearby Chelsea markets celebrates in displays.
Dianne Van Furstenburg’s crystalline parasite by Works AC has radically yet thoughtfully rebirthed a solid but unremarkable building (in an upgrade valued at $30 million). At ground level, the facade has been completely removed except for the plastered columns (whose slenderness suggest steel underneath). The new, frameless glazed shopfront is set back to separate the new from the original. A deep canopy over the street shelters pedestrians, the opal polycarbonate throws a diffuse light and reinstates the deep, pragmatically scaled all-weather protection needed by the meat packers early last century.
Across the road, stands a three storey brick building painted black. There are nine openings – all generous ­– arrayed symmetrically in a simple grid. Two street trees stand outside, also symmetrical to the frontage. Anywhere else this would be twee. Here, it’s an honest reuse of an existing building; unremarkable once, now just well loved again. Not overworked. And no meaningless junk applied to “sex up” the unremarkable now.
So where does Italian cuisine come into any of this? And what relevance to Adelaide?
It’s often said that Italian food seeks to elevate the character of individual ingredients; drawing out the essential qualities of each constituent part. Sun-ripened tomatoes served sliced, with a little salt & oil. Direct. Essential. Quality unmasked by additions. Served with bread. Simplicity that invites critique on the few moves made and the underlying quality of the produce. This comes to mind in the renewal of the Meatpacking District. Street level transformation retains the essential qualities of its original form. In many cases, materials and features are direct, unmasked and sometimes unfinished. Often the stainless steel essential to protect against meat trolleys and general abuse of workers has been re-discovered to sheath the shopfronts of haute couture. Those deep awnings that provided cover for delivery trucks in all weather have been re-conceived; covered now in translucent polycarbonate that diffuses sunlight like a photographers studio, flattering both mannequins and shoppers. Shopfronts for BOSS are thick plate steel painted in a flat bridge-paint. Stella McCartney is happy behind a mid-20th Century anodized aluminium with a shutter for night-time protection. Dianne Van Furstenburg’s deliveries occur at a roller door on the street.
Bars in the area follow the same logic. Super cool STK’s street frontage is an acid-treated steel plate, the club signage etched into a panel. Pastis, a corner brasserie, occupies one of the few two storey buildings in the precinct. It’s marked by generous red folding awnings over it’s street dining, set against glazed white tiles to four metres high and goose neck lighting bracketed off the unpainted brick facade. All, bar the awnings, is original. In Australia, we’d install those off-the-shelf DIY screens of aluminium and glass that eek the most out of meagre footpath widths, projecting tourists (who else would sit there?) into traffic. Here, the dining is ringed by verdant flower beds at the height of the table. It’s dignified and softens what is otherwise a very
urban scene.
In much of the precinct, the roadway is a coarse cobblestone, undulating and warped. The black town cars of the wealthy and the yellow taxis for the rest of us take the street at a crawl to save the chassis, allowing pedestrians to negotiate crossing at will.
Unlike the rest of Manhattan, there are few signalled crossings.
So what lessons for us in all this? Here are five short observations:

Work with what you’ve got.
The Meatpacking District has worked with its heritage of street-based industry, embracing the utilitarian materials designed for hard work. In some cases, the hanging steelwork that once carried the meathooks is still there. Whether by necessity or by design, much of the original fabric has been cleaned up and re-purposed, not over-polished or obliterated in the pursuit of some pre-determined
sense of style.

Organic is good. And not just in food. Growth in the Meatpacking District has been organic. But that doesn’t mean anything goes. Organic food requires stringent standards. Organic city growth does too. If resources were not available for a whole-building upgrade, it hasn’t stopped a ground floor refurbishment allowing a restaurant, a clothing outlet, an alehouse etc. The “brand” has become so desirable, chic boutiques sit alongside Just Jeans, all just happy to get a berth on the strip.

Work the spaces between. Being adjacent to the Highline means visitors have somewhere to retreat to, to stop and breathe. Have an iced tea at The Porch, grab an ice block made from frozen fruit, or sun bathe on the huge timber lounges set amongst out of control greenery. The small “town square” nestled under the Highline is activated by entry to the uber chic The Standard hotel and an alehouse. Seating in the square is chosen for the daffodil yellow colour match to the garish revolving door to the hotel. A six metre tall clown sculpture sits holding his head in his white gloved hands, a reminder that public art should be arresting and act as an effective marker in the city landscape.

Curate the mix. When does a “precinct” defined by a certain look or feel become “monocultural”? Look beyond W 14th Street and the precinct offers related experiences of food (the Chelsea Markets), Boutique Hotels (the Gansevoort), bars (STK, XX), lunch spots for the shopping elite (Pastis, XX). All are anchored by the exceptional Highline which guarantees an endless wash of backpackers, grey nomads, jogging locals, curious interstate visitors and a million types of camera!

Materials matter. Finishes and materials are often dismissed as whimsical obsession with the superficial. Wrong. If true, why are our travel memories so often suffused with colours and materials of a place? Surface, texture and materials go beyond the finish. Done well, they reflect function and dictate how we behave around them. Think of those taxis crawling over rough hewn cobblestones. What we make it from should matter as much as what we’re making. The Italians know it. Materials matter.