Earlier this year we marked the 200th anniversary of the Manhattan grid plan, that easy-to-navigate layout of streets and avenues that gives us Manhattanhenge, drives Speed Levitch crazy, and might just be based off some ancient urban planning.
In June 2011, the Architectural League, in partnership with the Museum of the City of New York and Architizer, issued a Call for Ideas inviting architects and urban designers from around the world (this, by the way, is the grid plan around the world) to "speculate about how Manhattan's grid might be adapted, extended, or transformed in the future."
120 teams from 22 countries submitted proposals and out of those, a jury of architects and curators selected 8 to go on display at the MCNY.
The proposals are more imaginative than they are literal recommendations-- extending the grid into the water, rerouting traffic to go underneath intersections, North-South pedestrian avenues cutting through the lobbies of buildings, and a second grid built 700 feet up in the air--and will be displayed at MCNY in conjunction with "The Greatest Grid: The Master Plan for Manhattan, 1811-2011."
The 8 selected designs are below. All captions courtesy of The Architectural League Of New York.
