Friends of the High Line

This book documents the competition-winning design by James Corner Field Operations, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, and Piet Oudolf for the High Line. Designing the High Line was published six years after Reclaiming the High Line – six years that changed the derelict elevated railway on Manhattan's West Side into the city's most exciting project and biggest catalyst for development. Construction on the High Line's first section (Gansevoort to 20th Street) started in 2006 and was completed in 2009, so this book is made up mainly of renderings and drawings, though a few construction photos are found near the end. After a brief history of the railway and the park project, the book presents the design concept and detailed designs for the first two sections, which span from Gansevoort on the south to 30th Street on the north (at the time of publication, the third section, wrapping around Hudson Yards, was a big question mark). Architects and landscape architects should love poring over the plans, sections, and renderings.

In the walking tours I give of the High Line, I describe the design as a kit of parts that is consistent along most of its length and broken up by special "moments," such as the 10th Avenue Square and the 23rd Street Lawn. Not all of the special features envisioned by the landscape architects and architects were realized, so this book acts as a document of ambitions for the park as much as it is a blueprint for what was built. I'd love to see a an update or companion that would include the third section, but I'm guessing Phaidon's huge coffee table book on the High Line (which I don't have) would supplant such a notion. Eight years after Designing the High Line, the park is so popular and successful that only a big, expensive book will do.… (mehr)

This is a beautiful book celebrating the revival of the High Line on the west side of New York as a unique urban experience. This is a design volume, not actually a view of the finished High Line. This is ongoing and the southern part of this converted railway park is now open. This book was put together in 2008. The rail line was orignally conceived as a way to take a busy freight railroad away from street running. It opened in 1934. Unfortunately, the manufacturing that used to exist in this area has mostly disappeared. The last train ran on the northern section of the line in 1980 and sat mostly derelict for 30 years. The concept of the High Line as an urban park came to Joshua David and Robert Hammond in 1999. But by 2006, the project had caught the eye of a number of noteworthy New Yorkers, so design ensued.… (mehr)