From Gansevoort to Istanbul: Architecture on View

I've just had two great architecture experiences! First, a marvelous walk on New York's own Promenade Plantée-- the new High Line. Ambling along the recently opened section from Gansevoort Street, in the Meatpacking district, to West 20th Street in Chelsea, I kept an eye on my copy of Justin Davidson's handy illustrated tour of the architectural surroundings (it appeared in the June 15-22 issue of New York magazine). I already knew, of course, that the formerly bleak, far-west section of Manhattan was rapidly being developed, but I was nevertheless surprised by how many sleek new towers have recently come up and/or are still in the process of being built.

From the excellent vantage point of the High Line, the city seems fresh and flourishing. Yet New York's history hasn't completely vanished. The elevated view offers exciting contrasts between the new buildings, with their glittering panes of glass and steel, and rusty remnants of the industrial past. The latter consist of atmospheric, desolate shells of deserted structures and the remains of the old elevated track. The worn railroad ties have been made newly elegant with wonderful plantings based on those that had actually sprung up there over years of desuetude. As for the bright new buildings, naturally they vary in quality. To me, the most innovative and exciting so far are Frank Gehry's IAC Building and two in-the-works structures, Jean Nouvel's 100 Eleventh Avenue and Neil Denari's HL23.

The second experience was virtual-- its source the striking settings of Tom Tykwer's movie The International. In a feature included with the DVD version, Tykwer makes an unusual claim: he conceived of architecture as a character in his film. And, in fact, after the intensity of Clive Owens's performance and the dizzying switches in geographic locations, the film's array of architectural backgrounds may be its most interesting aspect. Here are some of them:

1) Gunter Henn's Volkswagen Customer Center at the Autostadt in Wolfsburg, Germany. As the headquarters of ICCB, the villainous bank that is the central subject of the film, Tykwer and his production manager Uli Hanisch wanted a huge ultramodern structure-- a building that in its size would seem to reduce to insignificance the Interpol agent (played by Owens) who tries unsuccessfully to bring the bank down. They convinced the VW corporation to allow them to shoot the movie in the giant rectangular building that sits on a hill and dominates the Autostadt. Tykwer liked the building's "fake transparency"-- all that glass, with its suggestion of openness, but sinister stuff going on inside that nobody knows about!

2) Frank Lloyd Wright's Guggenheim Museum in Manhattan. The museum is the amazing setting for a murderous, let-all-hell-break-loose chase and shoot-out. Obviously Tykwer and crew couldn't decimate the real Guggenheim, so they created a convincing replica in an unused factory site in Babelsburg. They even "installed" a video exhibition (by the artist Julian Rosefeldt) to add to the lifelike quality of the museum's interior.

3) Gio Ponti's Pirelli Tower in Milan. The classic modern building is juxtaposed against the Neo-Classicism of the city's monstrous Mussolini-period Main Station. A political rally unfolds in the open square between the two buildings. The campaigner, who is also head of "Calvini Defense," is assassinated by a sharp-shooter positioned in the Tower.

4) Zaha Hadid's Phaeno Science Center. This curved concrete building, raised above the ground on a series of cone-like stilts, is actually another structure from the Wolfsburg Autostadt. It was magically transposed by the filmmakers to a lovely lakeside site in the Lago Iseo, Italy. There it functions as the headquarters for the above-mentioned Calvini Defense corporation, and becomes the site for a cat-and-mouse chase.

5) Berlin architecture provides a host of new versus old oppositions, a theme the director likes. The film's first scene and first murder take place in front of the city's sparkling new Hauptbahnhof. Not long thereafter, the Central Station's modernity is contrasted with Berlin's venerable Alte Nationalgalerie. Inside the museum, in one of its placid galleries, ICCB's assassin is quietly given his next business-like assignment in murder.

6) Istanbul's ancient Grand Bazaar is The International's final locale, and the site of its nihilistic conclusion. First, though, there is another chase-- this one through the crowded and colorful marketplace. Then, up on the roof of the Bazaar, a tense mano a mano between Louis Salinger, our Interpol hero, and Jonas Skarssen, the elusive head of the evil bank. It's in this dramatic setting that Skarssen is finally trapped and murdered. But, alas-- as we and Salinger know-- that death, though cinematically inevitable, is futile. Any number of other equally pragmatic bankers are eagerly waiting in the wings, ready to take Skarssen's place. The ICCB goes on...