Jeremy Edmiston
Fall 2012 — Spring 2013
Spitzer School of Architecture at the City College of New York
We live in a multilateral society. The spiritual is experienced individually, yet we covet an architecture to express communal identity and tradition; a quest for concepts of the ethreal conceived in material form. A Trappist monastery situated in New York City’s Lower East Side becomes an inquiry on the caliber and condition of religious architecture and its associated activities in our contemporary time.
For centuries, Monks have interacted with their contiguous societies to procure a conversation between two parties in a reciprocal, respectful way. The discourse appears at different scales: in relationships between individuals and their spiritual dispositions, between occupants of the Lower East Side and the monks, between each of these groups and the spaces of the city, between the appropriation of secular and holy spaces. Trappist monks are in the business of serving God by serving one another and their neighbors. To translate and transpose their sentiment would create an architecture that approaches patterns of profound movement: from meandering through market stalls and gardens, to steps synchronized with the recitation of prayer in the protected cloister, to the journey from the secluded worlds of the cells to the collective world of society. The experience of meandering through the architecture is a spiritual one. It is a way to remove oneself from the clamor and commotion of modern life.
The Lower East Side is one of the oldest neighborhoods in New York City. Historically and culturally rich, the community has traditionally been comprised of lower middle class occupants. As the gap between poverty and affluence broadens, the social tensions, frustrations, and economic disparities escalate.
There’s an inaccessibility to local, affordable, fresh produce, and many NYC neighborhoods are experiencing widespread rates of diet-related diseases. To link provincial farmers and merchants with strapped inhabitants would abate this matter.
The monks fulfill these roles. They sustain their system through the craft and exchange of locally grown materials for a dialogue with the community.
The architecture seeks to frame the site, reclaim vacant grounds, and reactivate movement after the decay and grit generated as a byproduct of the widening economic divide.
This urban exploration raises questions of appropriation, social interaction, tradition, and ultramodern rituals. The project seeks a dialogue between two distant groups of inhabitants as a way to examine everyday practice. Harvesting and selling becomes the way to have a conversation with the community. The pairing of sacred and secular creates a totalizing experience between hand, mind, spirit, and wellness of body.
The canopy is a fabric; a continuous surface that drapes over different levels of spatial organization to create one resolute form. A steel frame and columns comprise the primary structure. Secondary and tertiary fittings of shades, screens, glass, insulation, and other materials amass to create a system of rich layers, at once delicate yet permanent.