The Skyscraper Museum is devoted to the study of high-rise building, past, present, and future. The Museum explores tall buildings as objects of design, products of technology, sites of construction, investments in real estate, and places of work and residence. This site will look better in a browser that supports web standards, but it is accessible to any browser or Internet device.
Battery Park City represents both poles of "visionary to vernacular" of the exhibition's title. The policy decision by the BPCA to require all new development to follow green guidelines has created a community without precedent in the U.S., and its success has demonstrated its market viability. Green technologies such as photo-voltaic panels and gray-water recycling have been encouraged, but the use of conventional "brick and block" construction--a reinforced concrete structure with cinder block infill and brick facade--means that these residential buildings could easily be replicated in other locations. Design in Battery Park City is regulated by rules and reviews intended to produce a harmonious character. Some favor and others critique the calculated conformity, but one result is a neighborhood "vernacular" that clearly distinguishes the waterfront neighborhood from the surrounding city.
