MOMA PS1 called for ideas for a sustainable waterfront at Rockaway Beach, New York after
Hurricane Sandy.

The questions raised in the competitiion guidelines are:
Momentarily, there is no power, no resources, no soil for plants.
The Proposition should provide creative ways to think through human needs, the pressing questions of our time, finding new and better ways to start over andto be prepared for the floods of the future.


COMPETITION DETAILS


Alexander Muller:

The antagonism of nature VS. culture.

In our proposal we are assuming that the history of culture is fighting reality and fighting natural forces by all means.
The proposed building encloses an enormous space in a concrete mass.
Inside this space the climate is stable and controlled.
The whole area is is open to public use. It serves as a shelter, is fully equipped and running as a space for retraction. The interior is sound deaf and therefore provides for a very special form of gathering.
Like  a resilient organism the structure withstands natural disasters. Floods, Hurricanes, Thunderstorms, permanent precipitation or constant cold or heat. Anything that can be expected in a hostile environment.
In Northern America there is a tendency to abandon a space once it has become difficult to inhabit. The idea is that one can always start over somewhere else.
But one can also stay and fight.
The building-like structure keeps you warm and dry in time of threat and disaster. And it reminds you of the danger permanently.
Everything we do, are have or make is judged in our time by our culture.
So this thing looks brutal, but it is nice.


Mathieu Wellner:

We think it should be a Museum
Or at least be called Museum
Silence; Museum
The Future starts with that stimulation
somewhere
anywhere
The stim, as Lars Lerup calls it, is the trigger of this new beginning
a first concentration!
The mass of the building has nothing to do with monumentality, nothing to do with representation of power.
The museum is not meant as a fortress, but as public space.
Rem Koolhaas predicts in his text "the generic city" that public space will be inside, not outside, in the future.
The museum does not play the role of a place where you see culture on display.
With that first building in that area we want to show that we guarantee an everlasting forum of exchange - real exchange.
It's form is irrelevant.
The exhibits are feelings.