Golden age for parks in America

Cities are sprucing up waterfronts, transforming abandoned industrial sites and bringing green space to neighbourhoods

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AN OVAL POOL RESTORES A LAKE IN NEW YORK'S CENTRAL PARK

The Loula D. Lasker skating rink and swimming pool was Central Park's most jarring addition – a concrete flying saucer that looked as if it crash-landed in a ravine at the edge of the Harlem Meer, the picturesque lake that meanders across much of the park's northern edge.

At its 1966 opening, The New York Times' architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable called it "an oppressively jazzed-up military installation of sawtooth-trimmed concrete". It also leaked from the beginning.

Now, a US$160 million (S$210 million) replacement, named the Gottesman Pool and Rink, is coming to completion and will open in 2025.

Ms Susan Rodriguez, who heads her own architecture firm, stretched the round pool into an oval and tucked it into the eastern slope of the ravine.