Wiesława Gadomska

Other than their basic mission to collect and promote art, museums serve the important culture-producing role of creating architectural landscape in cities. This article provides an analysis of characteristic examples of museums’ spatial expansion (the Guggenheim Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art) characterised by specific urban, architectural and cultural conditions existing in Manhattan borough of New York City.

The development of organized green areas in the specific circumstances of New York’s “culture of concentration” [1, p. 10] takes place, among others, in areas whose original function has changed or found a new peripheral location. Many projects related to transport, storage, or freight forwarding have been completed in post-industrial areas. The issue of urban space recycling, besides the basic question of adapting the area to a new function, requires a particular reference to the cultural heritage of the place, including its material legacy, which is sometimes difficult to preserve and expose. This article presents characteristic examples of urban recycling in particular districts of New York where the new function of a city park has been overlaid on unused areas, while preserving their characteristic environmental circumstances and cultural identities.

The development of organized green areas in the specific circumstances of New York’s „culture of concentration”1 takes place, among others, in areas whose original function has changed or found a new peripheral location. Many projects related to transport, storage, or freight forwarding have been completed in post-industrial areas. The issue of urban space recycling, besides the basic question of adapting the area to a new function, requires a particular reference to the cultural heritage of the place, including its material legacy, which is sometimes difficult to preserve and expose. This article presents characteristic examples of urban recycling in particular districts of New York where the new function of a city park has been overlaid on unused areas, while preserving their characteristic environmental circumstances and cultural identities.