RECUPERARE L’INFRASTRUTTURA :L’HIGH LINE DI NEW YORK, 1929 - 2009.

Abstract

Designed by James Corner – Field Operation with Diller & Scofidio + Renfro, the High Line elevated Park is set on top of a forsaken elevated railroad structure in the old Manhattan’s meatpacking district. In over 20 years of abandonment, a lush urban wilderness has converted the High Line's tracks into a spontaneous greenway, whose unexpected beauty inspired the new park design, now matching with the huge regeneration of the Hudson Riverfront. The reuse of this abandoned infrastructure, claimed and partnered by the association Friends of the High Line, lean on some characteristic of the former viaduct which passes through buildings and runs nearly 30 feet in the air. Embodying the hybrid between infrastructure and building - main icon of XX century urban imagery - the ancient line can be read as an involuntary megastructure of the first machine age. Reminding us how urban spaces both produce and are produced by flows , the opening of the High Line allows us to examine the way in which architecture relates to urban regeneration process as an inherent characteristic of contemporary cities, and how it redirects its efforts towards a new culture of flows, marked by the increasing importance of slowness and sustainability.