when I made a bike ride from the southern tip of Manhattan to the northern end yesterday, i started noticing and thinking about how much the bike experience has changed on the waterfront. 20 years ago, there was no bike path, and the waterfront was hardly used, it was comprised of left over piers from an industrial past. Now there are parks, ferries, restaurants, merry go rounds, housing, and lots of people. the waterfront is thriving with activity from end to end. The overgrown, forest lined north brought a lot of memories back for me in particular. This part of the island has barely changed. I saw my old college boathouse and recalled all the memories of that place. It was completely sunny with a howling wind, the tide was low, the water was still murky.
Flashback. On the water.
Your seat slides forward to the point where your knees almost press into your chest, your hands elevate ever so gently in quiet anticipation, then “Boom!” - at that moment the blade of the oar drops like a knife and locks firmly into the water, the legs immediately thrust sending the racing shell heaving forward. As the legs spring back, the arms pull the handle of the oar into the body finishing the stroke with a whip-like motion sending the oar blade back out into the cold air. “sha”.
As the motion is repeated, you hear the mantric rhythm “Boom….sha. Boom...sha. Boom….sha Boom… sha”, That’s the sound a racing shell makes as it glides on the water - 8 rowers and a coxswain working in complete unison and balance to propel a racing shell forward. Every part of the body is in tune with the balance of the boat. Rowing is like flying on water. For 3 years in college I partook in this watery ritual: I would wake up at 5:54 am, run to the team van by 6 AM, head up to the boathouse at the northern tip of manhattan, stretch, take the boat from the racks, lift it over the body under the command of the coxswain, set it into the water, row up and down the murky East River, pass under steel bridges and between stone sea walls, glimpse the shoreline landmarks like yankee stadium and the dome of Bronx college… dock, raise the boat over the head and onto shoulders, walk the racing shell back to clean it with water hoses, then hoist the vessel upside down back onto racks to dry. These were my experiences of nyc on water. For every minute late you were to practice, the coach would drop you off a mile further away from campus on the way back to school. Sometimes, I would have to run 4 miles through the city to get to my classes. These were my dreaded experiences of nyc on land. Walking into 9 AM class sweaty and often times wet, I had already expended more energy than my fellow classmates would exert for the rest of their entire day. Rowing is a strange sport. At the end of a race if you’re tired you haven’t trained hard enough, and if you’re not tired you haven’t exerted enough effort. You’re always pushing to get better. To obtain perfect technique, you need strength… but to go fast, your body needs to be completely calm and balanced. I remember the days I could do 20 pull-ups, sadly now I can barely manage one. Although my mouse clicking finger muscles are quite strong now.
Jeanne Gang has brought these remarkable types of water experiences back to the Chicago rivers. It all started with a project without a client. Concerned with the pollution of Lake Michigan, the disuse of industrial waterfronts, and the risk of invasive asian carp species, she embarked on a personal research project to find a way to restore Chicago’s Rivers. The results of her effort were laid out in her book ‘Reverse Effect’. In her research, she identified the problem with Chicago’s rivers. 100 years ago, Chicago’s drinking water in Lake Michigan was threatened by sewage. The planners back then made a series of canals to reverse and divert the water flowing into Lake Michigan out through the rivers. Although the Lake Michigan waters became cleaner, it was a temporary solution, which in time, only brought the city’s pollution upstream into the rivers, choking them of life. Coupling the pollution with industrial uses denied access to these waterfronts for the residents of the city. Gang proposed a multi-step plan to clean the water through wetlands, reverse the flow of the rivers back to nature, etc.... The most important part of her plan to me was to engage the people to use the waterfront, to realize its potential, to use it for new experiences of the city, to inspire people to love and cherish their waterlines so they would want to protect them and advocate for them. For this she led a grassroots effort and talked to people and communities about their ideas and concerns about the river. Like an industrial designer talking to consumers, she observed people and their desires and formulated a plan to sell. Rahm Emmanuel saw these ideas, and when he later became mayor he commissioned Gang to design a series of boathouses.
As a former rower i’m awed that an non-rower architect like Gang could capture the spirit of rowing so well in a building. The boathouse roof geometry follows the trajectory of an oar. Gang used old stop motion photos of rowers to form the hyperbolic paraboloid sweeps of the roof. The movement of the roof is expressed. “Boom… sha” has been translated to built form. One architect’s vision has become a shared reality.
Flashback. On the water.
Your seat slides forward to the point where your knees almost press into your chest, your hands elevate ever so gently in quiet anticipation, then “Boom!” - at that moment the blade of the oar drops like a knife and locks firmly into the water, the legs immediately thrust sending the racing shell heaving forward. As the legs spring back, the arms pull the handle of the oar into the body finishing the stroke with a whip-like motion sending the oar blade back out into the cold air. “sha”.
As the motion is repeated, you hear the mantric rhythm “Boom….sha. Boom...sha. Boom….sha Boom… sha”, That’s the sound a racing shell makes as it glides on the water - 8 rowers and a coxswain working in complete unison and balance to propel a racing shell forward. Every part of the body is in tune with the balance of the boat. Rowing is like flying on water. For 3 years in college I partook in this watery ritual: I would wake up at 5:54 am, run to the team van by 6 AM, head up to the boathouse at the northern tip of manhattan, stretch, take the boat from the racks, lift it over the body under the command of the coxswain, set it into the water, row up and down the murky East River, pass under steel bridges and between stone sea walls, glimpse the shoreline landmarks like yankee stadium and the dome of Bronx college… dock, raise the boat over the head and onto shoulders, walk the racing shell back to clean it with water hoses, then hoist the vessel upside down back onto racks to dry. These were my experiences of nyc on water. For every minute late you were to practice, the coach would drop you off a mile further away from campus on the way back to school. Sometimes, I would have to run 4 miles through the city to get to my classes. These were my dreaded experiences of nyc on land. Walking into 9 AM class sweaty and often times wet, I had already expended more energy than my fellow classmates would exert for the rest of their entire day. Rowing is a strange sport. At the end of a race if you’re tired you haven’t trained hard enough, and if you’re not tired you haven’t exerted enough effort. You’re always pushing to get better. To obtain perfect technique, you need strength… but to go fast, your body needs to be completely calm and balanced. I remember the days I could do 20 pull-ups, sadly now I can barely manage one. Although my mouse clicking finger muscles are quite strong now.
Jeanne Gang has brought these remarkable types of water experiences back to the Chicago rivers. It all started with a project without a client. Concerned with the pollution of Lake Michigan, the disuse of industrial waterfronts, and the risk of invasive asian carp species, she embarked on a personal research project to find a way to restore Chicago’s Rivers. The results of her effort were laid out in her book ‘Reverse Effect’. In her research, she identified the problem with Chicago’s rivers. 100 years ago, Chicago’s drinking water in Lake Michigan was threatened by sewage. The planners back then made a series of canals to reverse and divert the water flowing into Lake Michigan out through the rivers. Although the Lake Michigan waters became cleaner, it was a temporary solution, which in time, only brought the city’s pollution upstream into the rivers, choking them of life. Coupling the pollution with industrial uses denied access to these waterfronts for the residents of the city. Gang proposed a multi-step plan to clean the water through wetlands, reverse the flow of the rivers back to nature, etc.... The most important part of her plan to me was to engage the people to use the waterfront, to realize its potential, to use it for new experiences of the city, to inspire people to love and cherish their waterlines so they would want to protect them and advocate for them. For this she led a grassroots effort and talked to people and communities about their ideas and concerns about the river. Like an industrial designer talking to consumers, she observed people and their desires and formulated a plan to sell. Rahm Emmanuel saw these ideas, and when he later became mayor he commissioned Gang to design a series of boathouses.
As a former rower i’m awed that an non-rower architect like Gang could capture the spirit of rowing so well in a building. The boathouse roof geometry follows the trajectory of an oar. Gang used old stop motion photos of rowers to form the hyperbolic paraboloid sweeps of the roof. The movement of the roof is expressed. “Boom… sha” has been translated to built form. One architect’s vision has become a shared reality.
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