Demographic projections [suggest that] more young people want to move into cities, more baby-boomers want to downsize there, more demand for apartments is coming, and more people want to relocate in close proximity to prizes like metro stops.
If all of this is accurate, and even more people will soon be living on top of and right next to each other – while sharing sidewalks, roads and public plazas – could we design better places where we could all live together without hearing quite so much of each other?
And just what would that sound like?
The Guggenheim Museum’s stillspotting nyc:
A two-year multidisciplinary project that takes the museum’s Architecture and Urban Studies programming out into the streets ….
Every three to five months, “stillspots” are identified, created, or transformed by architects, artists, designers, composers, and philosophers into public tours, events, or installations. In conjunction to these site-specific commissions around the city, students from Columbia University and the School of Visual Arts are visualizing, reflecting, and responding to everyday issues of visual noise, anxiety, and stillness through interactive maps and videos that will be presented on an exhibition microsite launching in June.
Together, these works weave an unexpected and cross-disciplinary web of tranquility throughout the city. Stillspotting nyc is organized by David van der Leer, Assistant Curator, Architecture and Urban Studies, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York.
Specific example: Pedro Reyes, Sanatorium, June 2–5 and 9–12, 2011
In his temporary clinic, Sanatorium (installed as the first edition of stillspotting nyc in Brooklyn), artist Pedro Reyes combines the best of New York’s existing therapy landscape with unexpected, short, experimental treatments. In two-hour windows, Sanatorium visitors experience up to three sessions from a roster of sixteen special “urban therapies.” Upon arrival, visitors will meet a receptionist who will assign a series of “therapies” to each person.
On Sundays, special sessions will be offered for children.
