The Architectural League of New York and the New York Transit Museum unveiled the winners of a competition to select sketches by contemporary architects for a new Grand Central Terminal sketchbook produced in collaboration with Moleskine.
The sketchbook features historical images from the Transit Museum's collections, along with twenty drawings and sketches by contemporary architects and designers who were invited to "submit a sketch or drawing that captures and/or re-imagines Grand Central, representing or evoking what this iconic building means to you."
The special edition Moleskine sketchbook celebrates Grand Central Terminal, one of New York City's most beloved monuments, which will mark its centennial in 2013. A year-long series of events and projects-from art commissions and exhibitions to publications, presentations and performances-is in the works.
A jury consisting of Dr. Jamshed Bharucha, Laurie Beckelman, John di Domenico, John Hartmann, Frank Lupo, Blake Middleton, Anne Rieselbach, Gabrielle Shubert, and Michael Webb selected the winning sketches from 109 entries.
The winning work represents both the richness and breadth of interpretation that defined the entries to this competition. The submissions ranged in media from hand-drawn sketches, charcoal drawings, and watercolors to photomontages, collages, and computer-generated renderings.
The interpretations are sometimes whimsical and impressionistic, sometimes analytic and diagrammatic. Evoking different kinds of narratives, unusual vantage points, and the complexity and dynamism of a working transit hub, the individual responses selected for publication form a collective portrait that captures Grand Central Terminal's historical legacy, current functionality, and iconicity to New York.