Governor's Island : designing the present through the past

Abstract

History and memory, along with relics, are our tools to retrieve the past. How can they also be the tools to create the present? This thesis explores how history and memory can be integral in the establishment of a new program for a site and inform the architecture of that site. This thesis challenges the history of a complex site while preserving its memories. Governor's Island, located on the southern tip of Manhattan has had a military history for 200 years. Having been recently vacated, it is on the list of the 10 most endangered historic sites in the U.S.A. My goal is to provide the island with a program which responds to the its past: an International Center for Peace; to provide an experience which unfolds history and memory: intersecting and diverging paths and places which take to visitors through the island; and to provide architecture which reveals the island's memory: transparent materials and a siting which relates to New York and military architecture. At these different scales, the past will be used to derive a new place from an old place.