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 grainy park snapshot with schematic drawings to show how movement, actions, and sequences produce architectural meaning.
Three numbered squares line the page—on the left a blurred, high-contrast photograph of figures in a park, in the center a precise, collage-like linear drawing of architectural fragments, and on the right a dashed plan animated by arrows and gestures—so the eye reads them as successive moments of the same event.
The Transcripts reframed architectural representation by treating events, circulation, and performance as design material, merging image and diagram to challenge plan-centered thinking and influence later conceptual and deconstructivist practices.
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
3.1995.6
Palette
Art Terms
Exhibitions
