In the archival records of Gordon Matta-Clark, I came across a pen drawing superimposed onto a photograph of a derelict storage building. The montage depicts a floating barge with little trees on it (Figure 1). The photo shows the Pier 18 loading area in Lower Manhattan, with a collapsing warehouse from the golden age of industrial activities as its focus, the skyscrapers of the as-yet under construction World Trade Center in the fading background, and the Hudson River in the foreground. Sketched onto it in blue ink and brown crayon, the forest fragment approaching the shore seems both to haunt the urban landscape and come to its rescue. It speaks of the salvage of a piece of nature that returns to the hyper-built city. An organic supply barge or a biodiversity island. A last outpost of wilderness to be stored in the jungle of high-rises beyond. That sylvan room that dwells in the waters of New York is a potent analogue for a sylvan edifice.

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