Meaning in Architecture (Essay Sample)

Meaning in Architecture
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Meaning in Architecture
Central Park is a metropolitan park in the heart of the region of Manhattan, New York City. It was first opened back in the year 1857 on a city-owned piece of land measuring 774 acres. New York's Central Park is the first city landscaped park in the United States. Initially imagined in the salons of prosperous New York citizens in the early 1850's, the park plan extends over more than a decade and staggeringly cost the city ten million dollars. The drive was to contradict the European interpretation that Americans did not have a sense of public duty, as well as indebtedness for cultural sophistication, and instead possessed an unhealthy and idiosyncratic materialism that prohibited interest in the common good. The injured egos of New York high society wished-for a sweeping pastoral landscape, among which the wealthy could line in their carriages, socialize, and be seen, so to speak, and in which the underprivileged could benefit from clean air and uplifting recreation without lifting the bottle.[Slavicek, Louise Chipley. 2009. New York City's Central Park. New York: Chelsea House Publishers.]
Since then, it has increased to its present size of 843 acres. In terms of sports, the park drive has over six miles long frequently used by learners, joggers as well as bicyclists. The park has one of the largest merry-go-rounds in the whole of United States. It has numerous playgrounds situated all over the park. It houses two top of the classes restaurants. Several events take place in the park. Public theaters host plays free especially during the summer season. In terms of art and architecture, the park has a total of twenty-nine sculptures have been erected. Astoundingly, most of these sculptures have been donated by individuals as well as organizations.
Chosen by the city and the park designers for the reason that its terrain was incompatible with commercial building, the site for the new park offered rocky landscapes, swamps which would be transformed into lakes, and the old city reservoir. These varied elements would be polished, enhanced, diminished, and exterminated to generate a park in the style of European public grounds, with an uncontaminated countryside look. To this end, Olmsted and Vaux's plan comprised four crosswise roads to carry crosstown movement below the park level. Architectural structures were to be kept back to a minimum primarily because only four buildings existed in the original plans for the park and the project and building material of the bridges were chosen to guarantee that they were assimilated as naturally as possible into their immediate sceneries.
Notwithstanding the motivation to craft a park for all classes, the park essentially attracted upper-class citizens who resided near the park. The stringent rules against picnics as well as frivolous activities, comprising a ban on baseball, discouraged many of the lower class settlers from visiting the fabulous park. The working class expressed their disagreement and drummed up support for Sunday occasions, including shows. By the turn of the century, the rules were relaxed to allow outdoor activities comprising the tennis on the open grasslands. Therefore, there is no difference between the meaning this space for me and its original intentions.
Indeed, the sense of central park, New York is connected to both its activities as well as its history. The original purpose of the creating, this place was to come up with a park that would offer people with an opportunity to breath fresh air by combining the rural kind of feel with that of the urban. The rich would also get a chance to parade their wealth in terms of carriages. Overall the part would bring the citizens of New York together by affording them an opportunity for their families to unit and enjoy nature. Presently, just like the past, the park houses a lot of individuals as well as tourists who come to benefit from the luxuries that this park offers.
Central Park materialized out of a multifaceted combination of enthusiasts that include; making money, to parade the capital's cultivation, to lift up the underprivileged, to sharpen up the rich, to spread commercial interests, to slow down industrial growth, to advance public health, to curry political favor as well as to offer employments. Today, active recreation termed as forms of entertainment that principally comprise physical activity accounts for about 15 percent of the entire park use. Passive leisure accounts for about 85 percent. Central Park is so indispensable to New York that its impact on the city is immeasurable. The low-lying part in the heart of the park which was converted into a lake back in the day entices the largest crowd even today, and it is anticipated to continue to do so for many years to come. The park has a zoo though it was not part and parcel of the original design. This zoo helps to decorate the original meaning of the park attracting more visitors and giving new Yorkers rural and nature touch.
Central Park is home to famous restaurants that offer employment to a lot of citizens in line with its meaning. With the rekindling of the city as well as the park in the new century, central park has facilitated in the conception of art groups committed to performing in the park. These groups perform yearly concert series as well as plays that keep the visitors entertained.
The Park drives are utilized as the home path for the Century Road Club Association's racing series. The CRCA is a USA Cycling authorized amateur cycling club. Central Park's glaciated rock ledges entice climbers, particularly boulderers; Manhattan's bedrock, glacial schist, projects from the ground recurrently and noticeably in some parts of Central Park. The designers avoided decorative plantings as well as structures in favor of landscapes that seemed organic and real. Olmsted tried to restructure the magnificence he saw on the Isle of Wight in the period of his first tour to England back in the year 1850. One of the great areas that remain in Central Park from the first old design is The Mall. At the northern close of the north-south pathway lined with elm trees. Vaux sought to create groundbreaking architecture for that stretch that demonstrated to be a real American innovation....