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 juxtaposes a documentary image with schematic drawings to map actions and movements in an imagined park.
What arrests you is the abrupt triptych: a grainy, high‑contrast photo of stairs and a handrail labeled “1,” followed by tight mechanical and grid‑based diagrams labeled “2” and “3,” so photographic realism and clinical diagram meet on the same page.
This work is part of Tschumi’s project to rethink architectural representation—replacing conventional plans with sequences of images and diagrams to reveal events, circulation, and the theatrical life of space, a strategy that influenced later architectural theory and practice.
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
3.1995.21
Palette
Art Terms
Exhibitions
