Art or lunch? Redesigning a public for federal plaza

The history of Federal Plaza/Jacob Javits Plaza shows how government officials, artists, designers, and critics engage in ongoing processes of design, critique, and redesign. The fountain proved difficult to maintain, and was eventually turned off altogether. It may not have been a place where people wanted to linger, particularly after the fountain broke, because of the wind in the winter or the heat in the summer. Schwartz completely transformed the space. What was once an open, if inhospitable, area is now filled with oversized furnishings bordered at the building edge by a broad path and antiterrorist bollards. The ongoing history of design at Federal Plaza clearly illustrates that public space and the public are both physically produced and rhetorically constructed. At City Hall, government officials used regulation to control how the steps were used and by whom. At Federal Plaza, the same results were achieved through rhetoric and design.