[quote]A New Vision for Ground Zero Beyond Mainstream Modernism
By MARVIN TRACHTENBERG
The architectural brief for the project forms a nexus of intersecting oppositions: remembrance versus renewal; contextualism versus identity and power of place; neighborhood needs versus those of the city; street level revivification versus skyline restoration. Any of these conflicting components alone would be a challenge; together they seem impossible to resolve.
...The Futurists inspired Le Corbusier, who quite on his own loathed the city with its "filthy" street life, to establish in the 1920's what became the orthodox model for modernist architectural and urbanist practice: scrape clean a large site (he proposed the entire Right Bank of Paris) and build on it one or more huge, machinelike, self-absorbed, formally "perfect" architectural objects that withdraw and turn their backs on their surroundings. We all know too well what the results look like, and the World Trade Center itself was a colossal instance of this paradigm: 17 acres of ancient Manhattan leveled, the street grid suppressed, hyperscaled "twin" purist towers set up, surrounded by an agoraphobic windy space, the life of the city kept at a safe distance.
Of course, no responsible party now proposes rebuilding the World Trade Center as it was; it is recognized that what is missed and mourned is not the specific form or presence of the Twin Towers but the life they contained and provided for, and the tonic effect of an immensely high building in the downtown skyline.
But what would happen if the underlying macho-techno paradigm of the Towers was combined with its antithesis, an architecture of commemoration and revivification? Although such a hybrid is perhaps theoretically possible, the likely product of this modernism-meets-living-memorial scenario would be an architectural Frankenstein monster like the World Cultural Center proposed by the Think team. In Think's predictable scheme, totally isolated from the city by sprawling reflecting pools, gigantic twin spectral tombstones rise over the New York skyline, flayed skeletons of the World Trade Center, with various cultural and memorial spaces dangling within, including one that ? really ? rather resembles an airplane shooting through both buildings.
...Mr. Libeskind's project is not just the best among several competing schemes; it is in a class by itself in its deeply creative, organic relationship to the specificity of ground zero and its environment and meaning, as well as in its accommodation of human needs and sensibilities. (It is profoundly "user friendly" on all levels.)
The other projects, including the one by Think, could be plopped down in virtually any large city with minor changes, if any. By contrast, Mr. Libeskind's design is deeply rooted in the site, literally drawn up out of the bedrock of Manhattan and grown from the particular street grid and other features of this now-historic place, including the footprints of its lost buildings. It encompasses the surrounding historical complex of architecture and urban life that is Lower Manhattan, including its infrastructure, especially the transportation system. It is inconceivable for any other site.
Hinged at the very center of the site are twin triangular street-level plaza-parks ? the Wedge of Light (attuned to catch sunlight every year on the morning of Sept. 11) and the Heroes' Park. These mirroring public places are filled with greenery and variously surrounded by cultural and commercial spaces. They also serve as major entrances to the whole site, and as such they join mourning and remembrance with a powerful affirmation of the forces of life and renewal, a leitmotif of the entire scheme.
...Even the critical connection with New York Harbor and the Statue of Liberty is renewed, as the particular shape of Mr. Libeskind's spire repeats the lines of Liberty's upraised arm and torch; in fact, the silhouette of the entire tower seems to retrace in the sky the contours of the entire statue.<hr></blockquote>
Here's Muschamp's article, taking some indirect shots at Libeskind, his scheme, and his usual blind allegiance to the "avante-garde":
[quote]In the past decade, a new audience for contemporary architecture has coalesced. Weary of being condescended to with picturesque building skins, "appropriate" contextual design guidelines and other shopworn formulas for visual distraction, New York has awakened to more enlightened concepts of urbanism that have been embraced by other cities of its class.
...Of the six independent teams that produced plans for the World Trade Center site during the study project, all but two involved collaboration between individual offices. The future is with them. To survive in the changing cultural environment, the city's large firms will have to reconfigure themselves as support structures for architects of distinct conviction.<hr></blockquote>
[ 02-26-2003: Message edited by: Jonathan ]</strong><hr></blockquote>
Hourray Jonathan, we have the same advice concerning design
This is great, Crazy, (it will cost a tremendeous amount of money to make the garden in the giant arrow (500 meters). But when it will built i will go in US to see it. it looks like cristals of quartz, it will be the jewel of US, and definitively better than the old towers, but i fear terribely more expansive (even if we do not include in the cost, the memorials).
I'm really starting to like this design too. Before I saw any of the designs, and heard about many of them incorporating 'the NEW tallest building on Earth'...I was a bit worried. Visions of The 2000 Foot American Phallus came to mind, and even a series of 5 buildings in a row, like a hand, with the middle one sticking straight up into the sky flipping off the East....troubling thoughts. Those would have been sure bets for another attack.
I mean, this way, whose going to attack a bunch of plants? Now that would just be plain mean.
Comments
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/23/arts/design/23TRAC.html"; target="_blank">http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/23/arts/design/23TRAC.html</a>;
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The notable parts to me:
[quote]A New Vision for Ground Zero Beyond Mainstream Modernism
By MARVIN TRACHTENBERG
The architectural brief for the project forms a nexus of intersecting oppositions: remembrance versus renewal; contextualism versus identity and power of place; neighborhood needs versus those of the city; street level revivification versus skyline restoration. Any of these conflicting components alone would be a challenge; together they seem impossible to resolve.
...The Futurists inspired Le Corbusier, who quite on his own loathed the city with its "filthy" street life, to establish in the 1920's what became the orthodox model for modernist architectural and urbanist practice: scrape clean a large site (he proposed the entire Right Bank of Paris) and build on it one or more huge, machinelike, self-absorbed, formally "perfect" architectural objects that withdraw and turn their backs on their surroundings. We all know too well what the results look like, and the World Trade Center itself was a colossal instance of this paradigm: 17 acres of ancient Manhattan leveled, the street grid suppressed, hyperscaled "twin" purist towers set up, surrounded by an agoraphobic windy space, the life of the city kept at a safe distance.
Of course, no responsible party now proposes rebuilding the World Trade Center as it was; it is recognized that what is missed and mourned is not the specific form or presence of the Twin Towers but the life they contained and provided for, and the tonic effect of an immensely high building in the downtown skyline.
But what would happen if the underlying macho-techno paradigm of the Towers was combined with its antithesis, an architecture of commemoration and revivification? Although such a hybrid is perhaps theoretically possible, the likely product of this modernism-meets-living-memorial scenario would be an architectural Frankenstein monster like the World Cultural Center proposed by the Think team. In Think's predictable scheme, totally isolated from the city by sprawling reflecting pools, gigantic twin spectral tombstones rise over the New York skyline, flayed skeletons of the World Trade Center, with various cultural and memorial spaces dangling within, including one that ? really ? rather resembles an airplane shooting through both buildings.
...Mr. Libeskind's project is not just the best among several competing schemes; it is in a class by itself in its deeply creative, organic relationship to the specificity of ground zero and its environment and meaning, as well as in its accommodation of human needs and sensibilities. (It is profoundly "user friendly" on all levels.)
The other projects, including the one by Think, could be plopped down in virtually any large city with minor changes, if any. By contrast, Mr. Libeskind's design is deeply rooted in the site, literally drawn up out of the bedrock of Manhattan and grown from the particular street grid and other features of this now-historic place, including the footprints of its lost buildings. It encompasses the surrounding historical complex of architecture and urban life that is Lower Manhattan, including its infrastructure, especially the transportation system. It is inconceivable for any other site.
Hinged at the very center of the site are twin triangular street-level plaza-parks ? the Wedge of Light (attuned to catch sunlight every year on the morning of Sept. 11) and the Heroes' Park. These mirroring public places are filled with greenery and variously surrounded by cultural and commercial spaces. They also serve as major entrances to the whole site, and as such they join mourning and remembrance with a powerful affirmation of the forces of life and renewal, a leitmotif of the entire scheme.
...Even the critical connection with New York Harbor and the Statue of Liberty is renewed, as the particular shape of Mr. Libeskind's spire repeats the lines of Liberty's upraised arm and torch; in fact, the silhouette of the entire tower seems to retrace in the sky the contours of the entire statue.<hr></blockquote>
Here's Muschamp's article, taking some indirect shots at Libeskind, his scheme, and his usual blind allegiance to the "avante-garde":
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/28/nyregion/28APPR.html"; target="_blank">http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/28/nyregion/28APPR.html</a>;
[quote]In the past decade, a new audience for contemporary architecture has coalesced. Weary of being condescended to with picturesque building skins, "appropriate" contextual design guidelines and other shopworn formulas for visual distraction, New York has awakened to more enlightened concepts of urbanism that have been embraced by other cities of its class.
...Of the six independent teams that produced plans for the World Trade Center site during the study project, all but two involved collaboration between individual offices. The future is with them. To survive in the changing cultural environment, the city's large firms will have to reconfigure themselves as support structures for architects of distinct conviction.<hr></blockquote>
<strong>yeah, the 'gardens of the world' won.
thank god, it's clearly the graceful of the two.
<a href="http://www.msnbc.com/news/877972.asp?0cv=CB10&cp1=1"; target="_blank">http://www.msnbc.com/news/877972.asp?0cv=CB10&cp1=1</a>;
[ 02-26-2003: Message edited by: Jonathan ]</strong><hr></blockquote>
Hourray Jonathan, we have the same advice concerning design
This is great, Crazy, (it will cost a tremendeous amount of money to make the garden in the giant arrow (500 meters). But when it will built i will go in US to see it. it looks like cristals of quartz, it will be the jewel of US, and definitively better than the old towers, but i fear terribely more expansive (even if we do not include in the cost, the memorials).
I mean, this way, whose going to attack a bunch of plants? Now that would just be plain mean.
[edit]: Hey! 300th post! Watch your back EmAn!
[ 03-02-2003: Message edited by: 709 ]</p>
<strong>... Visions of The 2000 Foot American Phallus came to mind, ...
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Or New York will have the worlds tallest minaret.
<strong>
Or New York will have the worlds tallest minaret.
See? We are inclusive!
<a href="http://www.wtc2002.com/start.lasso"; target="_blank">http://www.wtc2002.com/start.lasso</a>;
<a href="http://www.wtc2002.com/image.lasso?image=egress_2.jpg"; target="_blank">http://www.wtc2002.com/image.lasso?image=egress_2.jpg</a>;
<a href="http://www.wtc2002.com/image.lasso?image=egress_3.jpg"; target="_blank">http://www.wtc2002.com/image.lasso?image=egress_3.jpg</a>;
<a href="http://www.wtc2002.com/image.lasso?image=mem_one.jpg"; target="_blank">http://www.wtc2002.com/image.lasso?image=mem_one.jpg</a>;