Undead Promenade: Deconstructing the High Line

Situating Architecture Lecture Series - Christoph Lindner

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The High Line, an innovative promenade created on a disused elevated railway in Manhattan, New York, is one of the world's most iconic new urban landmarks. Frequently celebrated as a monument to community-led activism, adaptive re-use of urban infrastructure, and innovative ecological design, the High Line is being used as a model for numerous urban redevelopment plans proliferating worldwide. Critically analyzing the history and design of the High Line - as well as spin-off projects such as the QueensWay and the Lowline - this talk presents ideas developed in the forthcoming book Deconstructing the High Line: Postindustrial Urbanism and the Rise of the Elevated Park. In particular, the talk examines the ways in which the park's uncanny revivification of urban-industrial ruins constitutes an experiment in slow practice aimed at countering, while simultaneously contributing to, the amnesiac speed-space of the accelerated city.

Christoph Lindner is Professor and Dean of the School of Architecture and Allied Arts at the University of Oregon, where he writes about cities, visual culture, and globalization. He is the author of Imagining New York City (Oxford University Press, 2015) and co-editor, with Brian Rosa, of Deconstructing the High Line: Postindustrial Urbanism and the Rise of the Elevated Park (Rutgers University Press, forthcoming May 2017).

Image credit: Iwan Baan