The Manhattan Transcripts Project, New York, New York, Episode 1: The Park
Bernard Tschumi
French and Swiss, born Switzerland 1944
1976-77
A gelatin silver photograph from Bernard Tschumi’s Manhattan Transcripts that pairs a documentary image, an overhead park plan, and a schematic diagram to argue that urban space is produced by events and movement as much as by form.
What strikes you is the spare, numbered triptych: a low‑contrast photo of tiny, dark figures ascending a diagonal slope, a tightly cropped ornamental plan in the center, and a simplified dashed‑line diagram at right that together force you to read body, map, and action as one sequence.
Part of an influential project that reframed architecture as choreography and narrative, this work helped shift design thinking toward movement, program, and the spatial experiences of users rather than solely formal composition.
Medium
Gelatin silver photograph
Dimensions
14 x 18" (35.6 x 45.7 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Purchase and partial gift of the architect in honor of Lily Auchincloss
Accession
3.1995.13
Palette
Art Terms
Exhibitions
