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Product Description
M-11: "Puzzle Figures" by Haferd and Knapp
Harlem’s Mt. Morris “Acropolis” is not a singular monolith, but a heterogeneous one. Situated in Marcus Garvey Park, the iconic hard/soft rock, stone paths, and foliage produce a three-dimensional form that is acted upon by different users and environ-mental forces. Some describe the moun-tain as a ruin, but it is better understood as contested ground. The ruin is not pictur-esque but rather a political state(ment) of neglect and urban erosion.
Like the Acropolis of Athens, Mt. Morris is a meld of the human-altered and the pre-his-toric; the architectural and the geolog-ical. Manhattan schist rock formation—its hard, natural volumetric surface—extends far below the datum of streets and path-ways, like an island emerging from the sea. The cartesian Manhattan grid is left behind and becomes instead a three-dimensional compositional logic converging on a single point—the Harlem Fire Watchtower. The Watchtower is a symbol for the commu-nity; and is currently in a state of temporary absence as many await its rehabilitation and return. A puzzled and malleable mountain interior sparks the imagination of a reconfig-urable environment with three-dimensional spatial possibilities.
In souvenir form, Marcus Garvey Park’s mountain is represented as a constructed nature of three-dimensional tiles, held by the tower “pin” at the center. The iconic Fire Watchtower and Acropolis act as a “key,” locking the abstracted puzzle of topog-raphy into place. Puzzle Figures themselves are produced by a three-dimensional inter-locking spatial logic which starts at the tower. The finished product embodies the ever-changing quality of this hybrid and urban topography / strata while celebrating the architectural potential that lies within.