Construction Site, 270 Park Avenue, NYC, 2021.
Too many pixels at https://www.flickr.com/photos/mattblaze/51382836481
#photography
Captured with the Phase One IQ4-150 Achromatic back and the Rodenstock 138mm/6.5 HR Digaron-SW lens, which, unusually for large format lenses, employs a floating element integrated into the focusing helical.
This photo is a literal image of a construction site (to become the new JP Morgan building), but also an exercise in abstract precisionism and cubism. We see the new skyscraper, and the buildings in the background, essentially as a Mondrian-esq deconstructed tangle of lines and rectangles.
The skyscrapers along Park Avenue in the 40’s sand lower 50’s are all minor engineering marvels. They’re built atop the rail yard for Grand Central Terminal (an early adopter of the modern real estate concept of “air rights”). Many of the newer buildings are much taller than was anticipated when the terminal was constructed more than a century ago. This heavily constrains their foundations and anchor points, leading to unusual load-bearing designs such as the steelwork shown in the photo.
@mattblaze@federate.social I’ve been fascinated by these kinds of buildings and tunnels underneath them since I was a kid. Probably it was that George Martin Beauty and the Beast TV show that started that. Or Lex Luthor’s subway accessed lair. I wish Presidents would go back to travelling by (private) rail car.
@mattblaze@federate.social
Excellent photo’s. :D
I once had a copy of the architect’s plans for the building that sits over the track bed train exits for Liverpool Street Station in London. :D
While it looks like it’s supported from underneath, that flat surface is only a raft, and all of the support comes from the buttresses at each side of the track beds. :D
Some chewy engineering work in there. :D
