This project is a competition entry for an Arts Facility on the High Bridge Aqueduct, which connects Manhattan to the Bronx. By Anna Kostreva and Lis Cena.
The themes of the circus, the festival, the joker, and the performer resonate with a facility for artists. In many ways each artist is an individual actor and performer, who, through the display of their work reproduces, exaggerates, criticizes, admonishes, humiliates, and adores the reality of everyday life of society. They are the jokers that lie in order to tell the truth.
The artist must stake and express their own position, and yet - they are not alone. Artists exist within communities of artists and within disciplines which can overlap and move together. And so, an Artists' Circus is just that - a place where the community of artists can team up, brainstorm and learn with each other, and support each other in the production and sharing of their work.
The Circus has a momentous aliveness about it. It requires that the facility itself is an event, one which must become dynamic. In order to highlight the arts in the public realm, we propose that the High Bridge Artists' Circus has year round spaces as well as 'circus seasons.' These seasons would be times for artist residencies -- perhaps two week terms, every two months. During the season, many activities and events would be taking place for those in residence as well as the public. The artists studios and workshops are 'unpacked' from the stations on the bridge and rolled out like train cars along the aqueduct. This signals the public, that there is something happening on the bridge, something new, something to visit. And so, each of these pavilions will engage the public - who will be able to see into some studios and even attend events performed by the artists themselves in the spaces along the bridge.
A Circus is also about the relationship to the 'ring' - to being on the periphery of a performance or in the limelight of the center. The formal and physical nature of the circus ring creates a relationship to infrastructure, for instance as a round-a-bout intersection. The High Bridge is situated in and among a mess of water, train, and traffic infrastructure. Taking a cue from the many curved roads highways that surround the bridge, The main building for the facility works as an extension of a curved ramp on the Bronx side of the river. This is the year-round Circus Building. The arc like portion of it holds the periphery and supportive programs: the library, classrooms, and office spaces, while at its center is an open space connected to a bar and restaurant. Many professions are about networking -- and a space to be in the social 'limelight' cannot be ignored for artists, either!
This building grounds the project. It allows for the delivery and transportation of artwork in and out of the facility. Vehicles can approach the Center, park, and then visitors can enter into the whole artists facility, including access to the bridge as well as a boardwalk next to the river.
At the core of the High Bridge Arts Circus is the Aqueduct bridge itself. This bridge has undergone transformations over time and it has created a common identity for Manhattan and the Bronx at this section of the river. Part of the Artists Circus is to open people up to new perspectives about life, art, and the environment. The built spaces along the bridge do just that. While walking the length of the aqueduct visitors can peer down into uncovered sections and view the changing aqueduct cavity. There are also two stations which wrap around the aqueduct. Each of them has a gathering and performance space under the masonry arches of the bridge - a space people can not normally experience because the arches are so high above the ground. One of the stations also uncovers the 3 steel aqueducts running through it, and allows visitors to get up close and see the infrastructure that was used in the past - and hopefully spark some curiosity about how infrastructure works today.
By opening the bridge to seasons of festivities, the communities on both sides of the river will be able to move from the recreational spaces of their neighborhood parks onto the connector of the bridge. This bridge, currently standing in neglect, will once again connect them to greater New York, but it also has the possibility - through the artists and events brought into the space - to connect them to greater humanity and new perspectives.