Converging Lines

Lines have ever crossed on the raised steel structure of the High Line: first the railway lines, they became a green course, were overlaid by the linear paths of the park and are now crossed by the even more meandering lines of Sunday strollers. However, not only physically do lines intertwine at the High Line, the very conception of the park forms a convergence of different courses that have been guiding landscape design.

In 1934 the freight train line of Manhattan’s western industrial district was elevated 30 feet in the air, restoring 10^th ‘Death’ Avenue to its proper name. Here, a first remarkable consideration for the street life is reflected in the route of the trains, cutting through the building blocks instead of covering the streets in dark shadows. The increase of interstate truck trafficking led to the abandonment and amputation of the southern part of the line in the 1960s. In 1980 the last train left the tracks that gradually disappeared under a thin layer of banal weeds, grasses, wild flowers and here and there a small shrub – one of the many abandoned, rusty and overgrown ruins of the industrial era. However, we would soon learn to love these brutal, course metal skeletons through an exceptional precedent in Germany: the recovery of the ruins of an enormous smelting factory in Duisburg by landscape architect Peter Latz. Here, fragile white blossoms appeared between the robust metal girders of the factory, slowly purifying the polluted soil and at the same time softening the scene for an adventurous public park. Ten years later in New York, community activists embraced both the new postindustrial landscape imagery and the ecological aims – enriching the new emerging landscape vision with a strong social impetus. By 2004 the Friends of the High Line community organization have convinced the city government to convert the structure into a park and a design team was selected: James Corner’s office Field Operations and Diller Scofidio + Renfro. The meeting of these different threads that have given a new direction to landscape design – the postindustrial imaging, the (urban) ecological and social movements – created a skein that could have only been disentangled by James Corner’s landscape vision and translated into a beautiful streamlined design by Diller Scofidio + Renfro.

The design is extremely simple: a mile – 1.6 kilometers – long linear path winding between the ‘spontaneous original’ vegetation, emphasizing in every point the uniqueness of its particular context. The single line is the essential reduction of a park, but the elevation of the structure, making it move through the building blocks, clearly sets it apart from the streets and gives it that one characteristic we all look for in parks: a place of escape and refuge, distancing ourselves from the city. Although the High Line is not an idealized picturesque landscape image, as that other world-renowned park in the city, it also thrives on the contrast with its surroundings, just like the large trees of Central Park become all the more impressive because of the looming skyscrapers towering above them. But for the High Line the city becomes part of the park, the reconnection with nature becomes a rediscovery of the city, moving through the blocks, through a canyon of skyscrapers and penetrating the lower levels of old industrial warehouses. In this light the designers have grasped every divergence in the smooth course of the old railway tracks and its relation with its surroundings to stage an impressive and, until now, unknown vista on the city. At least in this respect it refers back to the varied naturalistic scenes of Central Park, and starts at Gansevoort Street with a woodland to the open and exposed grasslands a bit further, until it reaches the enclosure of some buildings, providing a microclimate for the ‘Chelsea Thicket’ opening to the required grass lawn that ends in a chasm where the path lifts above the suddenly lush vegetation. These landscapes are then seamlessly sewn together, following the curves of the railway tracks and emphasizing the flow in every single aspect through the use of one single element: the line.

The paths become a virtuous play of concrete lines, now going up to form a bench, then diving underground embracing an early crocus flower, but always making a smooth transition. This play of new lines running parallel to, and sometimes crossing the remaining rails, captures the true identity of the park as a place of flows and reinforces this character along its entire length. But on top of this ‘spontaneous’ natural layer, reminiscent of the former condition, and the new lines of the concrete paths, the extra park program needs to be fitted in. Here the ingenuity and careful feeling for the context of the designers emanates from the evident way in which the railway bedding can accommodate a stage, a sundeck, a viewing spur and other unique spots. The continuous elevated line is punctuated with interventions at every opportunity, following from the shape of the viaduct, or the surrounding urban context. These are also the excellent opportunities to engage with the streets below. The 14^th Street entry, for example, illustrates the care with which the stairs are inserted between the beams with a long landing over the street revealing the legs of the visitors, but at the same time bringing light to the street level. Also the materials reflect the transition and adaptation: a glass railing keeps the continuous park landscape open, a new rusty ‘Corten’ steel plate is inserted when cutting though the soil, and below the steel of the old viaduct glass opens to the street below. Through these subtle transitions the park can engage with the streets without abandoning its own status. However, in its engagement with the adjacent buildings it is even stronger. The penetration of the Chelsea Market building forms a rougher gap in the sleek continuum of the park, giving breathing room for artists and performers. The new Whitney Museum at the Gansevoort Plaza by Renzo Piano will hopefully exploit this opportunity even more.

After this short reflection on the rich aspects of the High Line I have to acknowledge the designers’ exceptional attitude and skills in the way they were able to retrieve the memory of the old railway, incorporating the spontaneous ecological diversity and carefully inserting a social program carried by the community. The High Line rightly deserves its high status as an exceptional postindustrial park that interweaves lines from ecology, conservation, its urban context and community, but most of all its own landscape identity.

Thomas Willemse

March 2013