The Manhattan Transcripts Project, New York, New York, Episode 4: The Block
Bernard Tschumi
French and Swiss, born Switzerland 1944
1980-81
An ink and cut-and-pasted gelatin-silver photographic collage from Bernard Tschumi’s Manhattan Transcripts that layers drawn architectural plans with repeated photographic fragments to stage sequences of movement and event in the city.
Crisp, mechanical line-work of a city section floats across the top while a staccato row of black photographic leg fragments—alternating positive and negative—hangs beneath, creating a dissonant, cinematic rhythm between plan and action.
This piece is from a landmark series that broke architectural representation open by mixing plan, elevation, and filmic montage to treat buildings as sites of event and narrative, helping to usher in event-based and deconstructivist approaches to architecture.
Medium
Ink and cut-and-pasted gelatin silver photographs on tracing paper
Dimensions
19 x 31" (48.3 x 78.7 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Purchase and partial gift of the architect in honor of Lily Auchincloss
Accession
9.1995.10
Palette
Art Terms
Exhibitions
