The nation's ongoing foreclosure crisis has ushered in a new era of lending, volumes of new regulations, even a new federal agency ... and now, a new way of looking at architecture and the suburban culture.
New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) has announced the launch of a 14-month initiative to examine new architectural possibilities for American cities and suburbs in the context of the foreclosure crisis in the United States.
While many lawmakers, and even housing experts, insist the idea of the "American Dream" is no longer a viable one, officials behind the MoMA initiative believe it just needs to be reworked.
Their project, "Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream," will enlist five interdisciplinary teams of architects "to envision a rethinking of housing and related infrastructures that could catalyze urban transformation, particularly in the country's suburbs," according to a statement from MoMA.
The teams will participate in a four-month workshop phase beginning in May, with each focused on a specific "megaregion," a metropolitan area that lies within a corridor between two major cities.
The subject markets include: Portland, Oregon; Temple Terrace, Florida; Cicero, Illinois; The Oranges, New Jersey; and Rialto, California.
The participants' will conduct their work on the premise of fostering a new way of looking at the public housing problem, raising the argument that housing in the American suburbs is a matter of public concern as opposed to the belief that a home in foreclosure is the problem of the individual owner.
Each team's proposal will be exhibited at MoMA from January 31, 2012 through July 31, 2012. The public will have an opportunity to view the design work in progress on June 18, 2010 and September 17, 2010 at the MoMA PS1 Contemporary Art Center in Long Island City, Queens.
"The foreclosure crisis has led to a major loss of confidence," said Barry Bergdoll, MoMA's Philip Johnson chief curator of architecture and one of the project organizers.
"New paradigms of architecture, and regional and transportation planning, could well be the silver lining in the crisis of homeownership," said Bergdoll. "This has hit especially hard in suburbs. It is here, rather than in the next ring of potential sprawl, where architects, landscape designers, artists, ecologists, and elected officials need to rethink reshaping urban America for the coming decades."
BY: CARRIE BAY
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