The Vessel: A Viewpoint

South African architectural photographer Dave Southwood visits the controversial “Vessel” in Hudson Yards, New York City. Here’s his take…

Like two halves of its pineapplesque shape, Thomas Heatherwick’s Vessel has cleaved opinion straight down the middle. Some view the towering bronze structure as a supreme waste of money, and mindless materialism sprung directly from the self-important billion-rich matrix from which it’s grown – a $200 000 000 in-joke. The other half view it as a triumph of architecture and/or form – and judging by the queues at its base, tourists adore it.

Part of the reason why the Vessel is hard to pin down is that it doesn’t slot easily into an established, formal, structural typology. It’s too big to be public art; it doesn’t have the sort of normative function attached to urban architecture or infrastructure, like a bridge; and it plugs squatly into its rather inhuman Hudson Yards context, as if Kim Kardashian needs to spritz it with Evian from her watering can.

In an utterance designed to destabilise categorisation further, Heatherwick Studio group leader and partner Stuart Wood has said, “In a way, we’re thinking of this as a piece of furniture.” Thanks Stuart, but it’s 14 storeys high…

I arrived at the Vessel at 11 o’clock, expecting to experience a crush – but the tickets are free and the line moves quickly, so I managed to hit the stairs within 10 minutes. If you want to book a specific date and time to visit, you can do it on the Vessel’s website (it’ll cost you $10); otherwise, just pitch up early and queue.

The materials and structure – copper-coloured steel fabricated in Italy, and flattened, interlocking hexagons – combine beautifully, and I found my hardline attitude to “mindless materialism” being rapidly chamfered.

The Vessel does exactly what it’s supposed to do: it bookends the High Line’s northern extremity; it symbolises Hudson Yards; it agitates and subverts architectural categories; and, most importantly, it provides a backdrop against which millions of tourists can snap millions of selfies.

“Vessel” is the word that currently stands in for the final name of the structure, which will be decided by the public and has yet to be nominated. And since that slot remains empty, why not visit – and suggest one?

Open: Monday-Sunday 10am-9pm | hudsonyardsnewyork.com/discover/vessel