Thursday, April 28, 2011

Dare Devil"s Hell"s Kitchen: Architecture as a reflection of personality

This is "Roof Piece" by artist Trisha Brown, photograph by Babette Mangolte. Roof Piece is a dance / performance art piece that takes place on numerous rooftops across New York and included improvised dance moves choreographed between numerous dancers. This took place in 1971. I am including this because of the New York roof architecture seen as glistening white roofs and massive water tower that dwarf the bodies. This is the New York that Daredevil lives in.

Daredevil is the alter ego of Matthew Murdock, he resides in the Hell's Kitchen district of NY. He was an ordinary man, like Bruce Wayne, who had bad things happen to him. He was blinded by a radioactive substance from an oncoming vehicle (the lack of sight increases the power of his remaining senses to super-human strengths). His Father is a Boxer who is murdered for refusing to throw a fight. This leads to Murdoch dedicating his life to revenge that murder.

Frank Miller, whom I mentioned earlier, worked on the Daredevil comic series in the 1970's and 1980's and he had a huge influence on how the comic has progressed. Hell's Kitchen started playing a larger role in the story and the character and place became much more sinister.

He creates this Hellish urban nightmare of a place. Crumbling buildings, Dingy Alleys, Graffiti soaked subway carriages and flickering lamp posts. Miller later goes on to illustrate Batman, using this model as a forerunner for his interpretation of Gotham.

Hells Kitchen as it exist today, is not the same as the Hells kitchen of the 70's and 80's as it has been constantly under going gentrification. It is also more commonly referred to as Clinton now, as the title "Hell's Kitchen" carries negative connotations.

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