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BX-07: "Tracy Towers Extrusion" by Frank Benson
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Product Description
Community Board Bronx 07 encompasses the Bedford Park neighborhood, which is home to the Tracey Towers affordable housing complex. Designed by Paul Rudolph and completed in 1972, the Tracey Towers are the tallest structures in the Bronx. At forty-one stories tall the Tracey Towers stand as a prime example of Brutalist architecture, but they also have a strong formal connection to the earlier art deco buildings that line Grand Concourse and Mosholu Parkway. Maligned in recent history, these buildings were created with a boldly utopian vision to house New York’s growing population in futuristic architecture that maintains a truth to materials and an economy of form.
I approached the Towers in relationship to my series of ceramic extrusions, which were made using plastic templates to draw out simple geometric forms in clay. The long rounded turrets form the ends of separate puzzle pieces that join together to surround a square central core. Each extruded element follows the floor plans of the apartments inside so that the shape of the living space is discernable from the crenulated top. Not a straightforward duplication, my souvenir is a simplified version of the Towers that captures the essential form of the building. The mirrored and staggered ends of the souvenir, encourages a horizontal orientation that allows the viewer to appreciate it as an object instead of a purely architectural model.
The Tracey Towers Extrusion souvenir aims to celebrate a lesser-known project by a major architect, while drawing attention to the important role that radical architecture can play in serving the greater good in a city that is rapidly becoming unaffordable for all but a very few.
I approached the Towers in relationship to my series of ceramic extrusions, which were made using plastic templates to draw out simple geometric forms in clay. The long rounded turrets form the ends of separate puzzle pieces that join together to surround a square central core. Each extruded element follows the floor plans of the apartments inside so that the shape of the living space is discernable from the crenulated top. Not a straightforward duplication, my souvenir is a simplified version of the Towers that captures the essential form of the building. The mirrored and staggered ends of the souvenir, encourages a horizontal orientation that allows the viewer to appreciate it as an object instead of a purely architectural model.
The Tracey Towers Extrusion souvenir aims to celebrate a lesser-known project by a major architect, while drawing attention to the important role that radical architecture can play in serving the greater good in a city that is rapidly becoming unaffordable for all but a very few.
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BX-07_Frank-Benson_TRACEY_TOWER_80MM
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Mature audiences only.
