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 presents three numbered panels—photographic fragment, plan-like drawing, and dashed diagram—testing how events and architectural form relate.
Across a wide white field three square panels invite reading from left to right: a grainy vertical photograph of a building fragment, a densely worked plan with curving paths and formal elements, and a dashed-outline diagram with a jagged profile, each numbered 1–3 and urging the viewer to link image, plan, and action.
Part of Tschumi’s influential Manhattan Transcripts, this work challenged traditional architectural representation by treating plans and elevations as sequences of cinematic events, foregrounding movement and program as generators of design.
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
3.1995.5
Palette
Art Terms
Exhibitions
