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 places a park snapshot, an architectural elevation, and a street diagram side by side to show how events and movement compose urban space.
The eye is drawn to a spare, clinical three‑panel sequence—an grainy park view, a punched‑dot façade drawing, and a dashed map of Fifth Avenue—each numbered and isolated on white like frames in a terse, cinematic score.
By combining photograph, elevation and plan into a narrative sequence, Tschumi reframed architectural drawing as a medium for actions and events, influencing later theory and practice that treat space as choreography rather than only form.
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
3.1995.1
Palette
Art Terms
Exhibitions
