A new exhibit at the Cooper Union revisits architect Paul Rudolph's vision for a megadevelopment built around Robert Moses' expressway project that would have destroyed much of SoHo and Tribeca.
From the Cooper Union's exhibition notes:
"Rudolph envisioned an approach to city planning that would conceive of movement throughout a city as the most common shared experience; multi-use transportation networks would be integrated into one design that would replace plazas as the prevailing urban design element. Plans for the LME therefore included not only an underground highway but also elevators and escalators connecting to the subway system, living spaces, a moving walkway, parking lots, and shared public spaces."
Paul Goldberger at The New Yorker comments:
"It was ridiculous in some ways, a futuristic city of the absurd. It ignored the streets, the lifeblood of New York's urbanism, in favor what seems today like a brave new world of anti-urbanism."
Read the full story: Paul Rudolph’s Manhattan Megastructure
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