Thomas Heatherwick’s Stairmaster Monument [officially, if tentatively, titled "Vessel"], or the Stairway to Corporate Heaven, or whatever the $150 million mound of staircases will be called in the end, is a monument, above all else, to the conversion of what used to be work into play, or what was necessary into ritual. From cooking to hunting to dating, we have turned the things we did to survive into pastimes we do to amuse and focus ourselves. Now even the simple act of walking up and down stairs will get a meaningless, but beautiful workout at the heart of yet another district devoted to sitting at your desk.
Heatherwick himself has said the staircases were inspired by the step wells in India (another example, if that is true, of necessity turned upside down and celebrated as a ritual), but there is a darker way to see the staircases: As the escape route from skyscrapers. In that case, the monument is a reminder of the danger that is inherent in closing yourself off in an air-conditioned cubicle hundreds of feet above the ground, relying on technology to keep you safe and sound. Strip that safety away with a fire or explosion, and you have to rely on those staircases, usually hidden behind the politely plastered walls of the office space, to get to safety. Now danger will be visible.
I was also reminded of other instances of the sort of split stairs the Heatherwick monument uses, such as the Spike Jonze-directed video for Kenzo Perfume, in which the actress Margaret Qualley races up and down such devices, bounces off walls, and otherwise attacks Lincoln Center’s staircases—which, on any other occasion, might serve as stage sets for patrons ascending and descending in glamor—with a vehemence that makes you aware of the absurdity of their polite airiness.
See more images and information about Vessel in Architect's Project Gallery.
It also is a reminder of how much architects love stairs, especially complicated ones. From the double helix at Chambord and Michelangelo’s oozing ascent into the Laurentian Library, to the present day in which staircases are what enliven the lobby of every museum, theater, and other civic building, even as most people use the elevators tucked behind them, architects have used the simple act of changing level as an excuse to make us aware of where we are, and to provide allegories of ascent and metaphors of intertwined human relations.
Does Heatherwick intend any of these references? He has not let on, calling the object merely “Vessel” (as in a vessel for our interpretations?), nor have the developers. It makes you want to have been a fly on the wall when he presented this $150 million ascent to nowhere. How did he talk the Related Companies into spending as much money as it costs to put up a decent-sized office building on something so useless? Is the whole thing actually a self-parody, a way to mock Related’s core business of sedentary elevation and, if so, are the clients complicit in this enterprise?
As such, you do have to wonder whether there might not be a better use for that money. Yes, $150 million is not much in relation to the billions of dollars Related is spending on its office towers, but it is enough money to build a lot of social housing or to shelter quite a few homeless people. In the best of all possible worlds, Heatherwick would have designed something more ephemeral and less expensive, and convinced the developers to donate to rest to atone for their space- and resource-devouring sins.
That would have been a little bit of heaven on earth. It is not to be. So, in the end, we have to live with and assess what contributions this bit of absurdity will make to New York and our cultural consciousness. Whatever the meaning or allegories and metaphors might be, the Staircase, as it is in the end, will become a fixture in the New York landscape. Its sheer size, and the pleasure kids of all ages will no doubt have in exploring its geometries, and, what is just as important, watching each other as they gain perspectives on the otherwise pretty bland office development around them, will make it immensely popular. I can imagine races to the top or the bottom, flash mob dances, but also suicides and protests. It will, in other words, become a public space, not the sort of useless plaza where jumping jets of water provide the only excitement, but a place to move, to see and be seen, and to exercise your curiosity and ambition to rise up. Worth it? Maybe not, but I will take this over most things Related Companies has spent its money on in the last few decades.
See more images and information about Vessel in Architect's Project Gallery.
