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Today BC and I journeyed out to Queens to visit the Noguchi Museum, nibbling on some pretty tasty, delicately prepared, and sculpturally resonant Japanese food on the way at Iji on Broadway. The Noguchi Museum presents the work of Isamu Noguchi in a former factory, stripped down to exposed bricks, with a nice interplay between inside and out, the natural world and the artificial. My favorite sculpture was a model for a pool that he was commissioned by Neutra to design for a home he was building for Josef von Sternberg, who was overweight and needed a pool big enough to accommodate him, according to the info on the wall. How fat was Josef von Sternberg? Maybe there was a trend in the 30s for pools that accommodated only skinny people? Anyway, I don’t know why it wasn’t built, but a Noguchi pool is the way that I’d like to experience his work, immersed in harmonious functionality.
Near the museum is Socrates Sculpture Park, where one may interact with a series of whimsical, ready-for-kids-to-play-on sculptures, including a tile Spiral Jetty, a giant sliced fish, a crushed Cadillac, a raised boardwalk meandering though a stand of trees, and an aluminum campfire.
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Following Mr. Noguchi’s museum, we ambled over the Roosevelt Island Bridge for a walking tour of Roosevelt Island. There are parts that seem straight out of a 60’s film vision of an urban utopia, modern functional architecture designed for easy living and proximity to all of one’s needs. What’s left of the 1839 New York Lunatic Assylum, an octagon-shaped building with a lovely dome, has been converted into housing. They’ve accurately restored the marble exterior, but stripped the interior and re-imagined the inner spiral staircase with minimal columns and delicate lighting, accenting architectural space without decoration. It’s a really stunning space.
