In architecture, we are supposed to see scaffolding as clean, conceptual, and temporary. Like Cedric Price’s Fun Palace, or SelgasCano’s Serpentine Pavilion. This never made any sense to me.
Clean? Conceptual? As a teenager in New York City, I roamed the city streets with friends looking for deserted spaces where we could be illicit. We were rebellious, and the city’s abundant supply of scaffolding was an irresistible jungle gym. Sidewalk sheds tested our climbing skills and became makeshift bedrooms erected just for our make-out sessions. Their green painted plywood walls transformed into lounges–perfect for underage smoking of cigarettes and (at the time very incriminating) joints. We barely noticed the dirt, grime, or darkness of the scaffolding. We were unfazed by any of New York City’s disgusting appendages.
And as for temporary? Now a working architect in New York, I called up a local scaffolder: “What’s the typical lifespan for the cross bracing in a sidewalk shed, anyway?” He replied in a thick Jersey accent: many of the parts are never replaced. Jumping from truck to tower, sidewalk to warehouse, scaffold is visceral and fluid, not just permanent, but possibly immortal.