I think Libeskind and others were really clever to get on this 1776ft thing - its an effective banner/slogan and effectively cancelled and/or limited criticism from those of us in the architecture community that could see where this thing was heading.
So what we've got is a watered down version of what was initially a good proposal, whose only redeeming feature is its symbolic, but ultimately shallow, height.
i read recently that silverstein has not been able to lease anything in this building yet. people are not buying into it.
another thing i read that bothered me...he said the elevators in this building would be completely controlled from below...there would be no buttons inside the elevator cabs. if you changed your mind and wanted to get off on another floor...tough luck.
can you imagine another attack...and no buttons in the elevator you are riding in?
1. Where is the imagination? This building belongs in Houston, alongside an interstate highway. Who is this David Childs character? He's boring!
2. Do over!
3. Let’s thank SOM for brilliantly melding an architectural form that quite lucidly paraphrases our predominant cultural mindset.
4. A tower which embodies freedom? This is a building devoid soul or beauty. This is not architecture, it is real estate.
5. Larry Silverstein's interests should have taken more of a back seat to those of the people of New York. Unfortunately, a weak and ineffectual governor like Pataki was in no position to make that happen. What we have now is a design which illustrates what cowards we are rather than how free we are.
6. I think there must be some kind of architectural slot-machine desigers get such dull, vapid templates from.
7. The people rule! No more tyrants, terrorists, dictators, or other mental midgets! We defeated Hitler, and then freed the ex-Soviet Bloc to their betterment. Maybe it's time the East had their shot at happiness. Go, America!
8. A most stunning and awe-inspiring image at Ground Zero would be an electronically created and controlled RAINBOW, visible day and night and spanning the site - say, 200 feet in arch hight - despite the eventual height of the future office buildings.
9. New York used to be the only US city to replicate the model of European cities, ie a city made by people for people.
10. the freedom tower, --- if that was chosen just from the looks and fasion and not to make the right ansver ,that must be new jobs and a brilliant new architecture, if you think that it is enough that it look like something and don't ask if it realy provide the vision. (Per Corell on NYT)
11. The only way Donald Trump and Steve Forbes can win the battle versus Childs, Liebeskind and the LMDC is to show that their new Twin Towers has a means of preventing entrapment of people during fire - or even another 9/11-like disaster.
12. The new design is better, but still not the twins. They rebuilt the Pentagon, I bet they replanted the field where the plane crashed in PA. Why can't they just go ahead and rebuild the twins, safer of course and up to date, but lets put back what these terrorists took away
13. when's that old Childs guy going to retire and move to Florida?
This project is boring at best, but I'm thankful it's not some Albert Speer heroic mess topped with a statue of Zeus, clad in brass and inscribed with phrases such as "let's roll," "god bless america," and "I like NASCAR and chewww."
It's hard to look at a brighter side, but it seems that architects are rarely supportive of one another in these situations. Granted, Childs may be a opportunistic back room no talent hack, but from the origianal WTC to SF's Transamerica Pyramid, these monumental projects are destined to piss off the design community at first, but often grow into favor later on. Hopefully the details can save this box.
As for the SOM's lit up model. I can't help but think of the tans folks would get working in that light saber.
on npr paul goldberger calls the design "refined" and "a purer simpiler statement." "if we are lucky the base will look elegant." "the spire is a big improvement over the last one."
well, if there is one thing for all to learn, be careful of who you get into bed with. who you decide to do work for is probably the single most important decision any business owner will make.
all this shit coming from a fuck who lives in a gilded penthouse in some manhattan rat hole...i want to choke this fucker....stick to going bankrupt, running shitty tv shows, selling newark sewer water, and wearing what must be the worst god forsaken birds nest of a toupee....you mutha fucking corruptible prick...whew thanks, that felt good!
Donald, I take it back, all back. Please save us from David Childs and that wretched SOM - Same Old Monstrosities.
>GASP<
good call vado. that piece of shit is so goddamned disgusting, my wife is even laughing her ass off.
on the plus side though, at least Childs can avoid being embarrased in a protracted law suit by that grad student.
Kudos to Childs and Team for reducing that horrible event to something that we can all agree is laughable.
Kudos to Silverstein for fucking putting money before quality design, and the memories of those murdered and before anything else I forgot. Your heartless prick, die.
Kudos to Governer Pataki, for reverting to that week kneed ankle biting lap dog of this a-hole administration. Way to go, now your legacy and your future heir's legacy will endure ridicule for eternity.
Hopefully public outrage will sink this shit, or else we'll have to endure another man made disaster in 2010.
I think we should save our valuable engery complaining about the Freedom Tower and go back to spending our valuable energy complaining about Hernan's projects.
and with leasable space in lower mannhatten down to historic lows do we even know if it will be successful? unless they are renting to say "look at me i support freedom" tower that is.....
"I think we should save our valuable engery complaining about the Freedom Tower and go back to spending our valuable energy complaining about Hernan's projects."
how about we get hernan to redesign the freedom tower and then we can bitch about that?
"and with leasable space in lower mannhatten down to historic lows do we even know if it will be successful? unless they are renting to say "look at me i support freedom" tower that is....."
from what i've been reading, silverstein hasn't been able to interest anyone. not a bit. except his own company of course
i almost hope it doesn't even get a single tenant.
Can we as architects and architecture students start a boycott of SOM? Send no resume, interview for no jobs. Grassroots stuff. How could any self respecting architect work for this guy. Here's a good article about it in the International Herald Tribune. All except for the part on him pitying Childs.
"....What the tower evokes, by comparison, are ancient obelisks, blown up to a preposterous scale and clad in heavy sheaths of reinforced glass - an ideal symbol for an empire enthralled with its own power, and unaware that it is fading."
We have to email Pataki. And Bloomberg. And anyone else pertinent to the situation. If this is going to proceed, and it probably will, they need to be inconvenienced by our displeasure with it. It's one thing for a journalist to paint a bleak portrait as Ouroussoff did so skillfully in that story, but we might actually get a point across if Pataki arrives to 4000 belligerent emails the next couple of days.
Think of it as helping to write a whole new chapter in your grandchildren's "History of Architecture" text books.
I am deeply disappointed, especially as an SOMer. We are designing and getting built amazing architecture in China, but the most important project at the beginning of the millenium on our home turf is a complete eyesore. I don't even think it'll be loved with time, just like SOM's Bank of America Building in SF. Being bold is one thing, but being pretentious and obstinate like Mr.Childs leads to total disaster.
you americans are not alone in your disappointment on large scale "important" architecture, if anyone has seen the outcome of the competition for "chatelet les halles" in Paris (THE main transportation hub in Paris, over 800000 people passing through per day, in the heart of the city a few steps from Centre Pompidou), it's about the same story: a bunch of very interesting projects (Koolhas, MVRDV, Nouvel) entering the competition, but finally the chosen one looks like a huge supermarket, has absolutely no innovations, is only profit driven and will (in my opinion) be THE architectural failure in the heart of the city
then I can only say: ARCHITECTURE SUCKS!!!
You are so right brown666.
It's weird when you think that since more people are living in cities, they should feel more concerned about the shape it takes. But the real effect of this is that cities represent more money, the square meter price is raising, the economic potential of a retail surface is more important, and that is what shapes cities now.
An artist friend of mine told me the other day that he was going to move down south because cities are dead. There's nowhere you can go. The intellectual frenzy that had it's peak in the 60's is over.
The problem is that New York or Paris are still considered as the images of their respective countries, and the only content of these images is the celebration of economic growth. The main difference betwwen Les Halles and ground zero is the catastrophic nature of the New York site. There's much more affect associated for the whole US country itself with the freedom tower than for France with les Halles. And it's just a proof of disrespect towards the tragedy to treat this site only with such economic or security concerns.
I don't think the responsability lies in th hands of Childs though. He is only trying to do his job, if it wasn't him it would be someone else, and the design could even be worse. It is more a pollitical failure that a design problem at this point. If this is about architecture, it doesn't proove that architecture suck: it just prooves it's powerless.
why is everyone sending emails to pataki and som - okay, I know why...
but how about sending a couple to silverstein - the root of the problem, he's the one paying for this crap to disgrace the NY skyline - all I'm saying is don't let him off the hook by overlooking his contribution to this failed project.
does anyone remember the energy, creativity and hope of the proposals that muschamp curated for the ground zero project (nytimes). like them or not, it's
just pathetic how completely banal this response is to the context. think about the context of this project, and this is what we end up with?
if we all contribute one dollar we could prob. pay for rem's fee - time to pick up the bat phone mr. pataki - hope the line runs straight to the oma cave, he does work in a cave, right?
imo - man this got under my skin this morning, ranting....if you're listening dr. no and muschamp - get on your horse and organize something quickly, they'll be sheeting and shoring next week from the looks of this proposal.
looks like rem's captive city from delirious ny is coming to fruition -- in more ways than one. (can someone post the image -- you know the one)
personally, I always thought the Eisenman/Holl/et al proposal would have been brilliant at answering the concerns we all have now -- ie, that it's turning into a developer project of just another boring crap tower -- the eisenman scheme was for developer towers and the absurdity they represented.
architorturealist - here you go, choose the destination of your choice, the areas
of "interest" speak volumes....wish that I could offer you something more direct,
but I'm sure that requires some connections - will look though, in the meantime try these out.
liberty bell, thanks, you know, I just think it's obvious we all want good things to happen at ground zero. We are all rooting for it so to speak but our frustration manifests itself in very different ways.
I bet they would actually pay attention to what we had to say if we formed a PAC (political action committee). We should raise enough money to hire Howard Dean to call up Pataki and shout at him.
between this thread and the Hernan P.s.1 thread we are all coming off as a bunch of jealouse architects enviouse that the commisions were not our own....the two extremes of architecture, corperate collaboration and the inividual avante-garde taking place in the same city and neither able to satisfy our own design sensibilities, albeit for two totally differant programs and cultural signifigance.
I briefly read the front page of the NYtimes this morn and I read that the base of the tower would be a 200 ft. high concrete wall, WTF!!. I feel that this tower is becoming more a symbol of misunderstood realities than a unifying force in the aftermath of a horrible time in US history. "Fascism" is the word that sprung to mind when I overviewed the article. The tower lacks poerty and good intent. It has written all over it - back the fuck off. What a waste of opportunity to have architecture truly work for us. I think deep down I knew that a poets and developers don't mix. I have to give props to Libeskind for hanging in there for so long and thru these guys charades.
Well I must say its a good thing Columbus took so long to discover America and for us to claim independance. What if we would have been established in 1670 AD...would the tower only be 1670 feet, a close second to the Taipei 101 (missing world tallest by a foot). Holding on to this 1776 thing doesn't make sense to me...1776 feet wait now, thats 541.32 meters, .336 miles...its just all depends on how you measure it up, just a bunch of numbers. Wait doesn't the rest of the world use the metric system, oh yeah, thats right so to them it doesn't reach up to 1776 only 541. I guess they should all switch to the imperial system, for our sake.
Reaching up to 1776 feet is just a matter of convinience and shear luck. Good thing we can build that high and that it just so happens to be taller than anything else out there for now. Hooray for us, we can do math.
From WTC Towers , Freedom Tower, --- to Redicolous Tower.
Guess the only measure are that with this the budget is known , how long time to build is calculated and known from simular buildings, but for sure this will not be the ansver, the one that bring true innovation and new jobs. I don't either bring a new architecture.
while the design certainly sucks (a 200 ft tall window-less base, WTF!), this whole thing is driven by monumental stupidity. as i understand it, the driving force behind everything is that the insurance money from the original disaster requires a replacement of the original office space. hence, the unimaginative program and the necessarily tall building.
i suspect that even silvestein is savvy enough to realize that this building is a bad play given the market conditions, but the $1-2billion in insurance money is tough to pass up.
so what i'm wondering is, there must be a way to negotiate out of all this stupidity. i doubt the insurance co wants to spend all the money on a piece of schlock. i doubt that silvertein, patoki, childs or anybody wants to be eternally associated with an un-rentable piece of schlock. take all the bullshit out of the equation and it then makes sense to let the site sit for a few years until something better emerges.
we need to bring intelligence back to the discussion in america...or else we are fucked.
The SOM "Freedom Tower" embarrassment
I think Libeskind and others were really clever to get on this 1776ft thing - its an effective banner/slogan and effectively cancelled and/or limited criticism from those of us in the architecture community that could see where this thing was heading.
So what we've got is a watered down version of what was initially a good proposal, whose only redeeming feature is its symbolic, but ultimately shallow, height.
i read recently that silverstein has not been able to lease anything in this building yet. people are not buying into it.
another thing i read that bothered me...he said the elevators in this building would be completely controlled from below...there would be no buttons inside the elevator cabs. if you changed your mind and wanted to get off on another floor...tough luck.
can you imagine another attack...and no buttons in the elevator you are riding in?
favorite quotes from NYT discussions about WTC
1. Where is the imagination? This building belongs in Houston, alongside an interstate highway. Who is this David Childs character? He's boring!
2. Do over!
3. Let’s thank SOM for brilliantly melding an architectural form that quite lucidly paraphrases our predominant cultural mindset.
4. A tower which embodies freedom? This is a building devoid soul or beauty. This is not architecture, it is real estate.
5. Larry Silverstein's interests should have taken more of a back seat to those of the people of New York. Unfortunately, a weak and ineffectual governor like Pataki was in no position to make that happen. What we have now is a design which illustrates what cowards we are rather than how free we are.
6. I think there must be some kind of architectural slot-machine desigers get such dull, vapid templates from.
7. The people rule! No more tyrants, terrorists, dictators, or other mental midgets! We defeated Hitler, and then freed the ex-Soviet Bloc to their betterment. Maybe it's time the East had their shot at happiness. Go, America!
8. A most stunning and awe-inspiring image at Ground Zero would be an electronically created and controlled RAINBOW, visible day and night and spanning the site - say, 200 feet in arch hight - despite the eventual height of the future office buildings.
9. New York used to be the only US city to replicate the model of European cities, ie a city made by people for people.
10. the freedom tower, --- if that was chosen just from the looks and fasion and not to make the right ansver ,that must be new jobs and a brilliant new architecture, if you think that it is enough that it look like something and don't ask if it realy provide the vision. (Per Corell on NYT)
11. The only way Donald Trump and Steve Forbes can win the battle versus Childs, Liebeskind and the LMDC is to show that their new Twin Towers has a means of preventing entrapment of people during fire - or even another 9/11-like disaster.
12. The new design is better, but still not the twins. They rebuilt the Pentagon, I bet they replanted the field where the plane crashed in PA. Why can't they just go ahead and rebuild the twins, safer of course and up to date, but lets put back what these terrorists took away
13. when's that old Childs guy going to retire and move to Florida?
This project is boring at best, but I'm thankful it's not some Albert Speer heroic mess topped with a statue of Zeus, clad in brass and inscribed with phrases such as "let's roll," "god bless america," and "I like NASCAR and chewww."
It's hard to look at a brighter side, but it seems that architects are rarely supportive of one another in these situations. Granted, Childs may be a opportunistic back room no talent hack, but from the origianal WTC to SF's Transamerica Pyramid, these monumental projects are destined to piss off the design community at first, but often grow into favor later on. Hopefully the details can save this box.
As for the SOM's lit up model. I can't help but think of the tans folks would get working in that light saber.
of course silvey can't rent that space. you might as well put a bullseye on your back.
the insurance premiums in the freedom tower would kill anyone.
thats the end of architecture in the good old usa
on npr paul goldberger calls the design "refined" and "a purer simpiler statement." "if we are lucky the base will look elegant." "the spire is a big improvement over the last one."
The key words being "if we are lucky"...
if the future vision of American architecture is 'a developer project'
we're all screwed...
if the future vision of American architecture is 'a developer project'
we're all screwed...
well, if there is one thing for all to learn, be careful of who you get into bed with. who you decide to do work for is probably the single most important decision any business owner will make.
all skyscrapers should look like one of the following
electric razor
nose hair trimmer
vibrator
is this what the "people" want? f'em
a month ago i wrote this about Trump's proposal;
all this shit coming from a fuck who lives in a gilded penthouse in some manhattan rat hole...i want to choke this fucker....stick to going bankrupt, running shitty tv shows, selling newark sewer water, and wearing what must be the worst god forsaken birds nest of a toupee....you mutha fucking corruptible prick...whew thanks, that felt good!
Donald, I take it back, all back. Please save us from David Childs and that wretched SOM - Same Old Monstrosities.
>GASP<
good call vado. that piece of shit is so goddamned disgusting, my wife is even laughing her ass off.
on the plus side though, at least Childs can avoid being embarrased in a protracted law suit by that grad student.
Kudos to Childs and Team for reducing that horrible event to something that we can all agree is laughable.
Kudos to Silverstein for fucking putting money before quality design, and the memories of those murdered and before anything else I forgot. Your heartless prick, die.
Kudos to Governer Pataki, for reverting to that week kneed ankle biting lap dog of this a-hole administration. Way to go, now your legacy and your future heir's legacy will endure ridicule for eternity.
Hopefully public outrage will sink this shit, or else we'll have to endure another man made disaster in 2010.
beta, i don't think there is public outrage only architect's raging. the general public likes the new design.
freedom tower? the tower does not represent freedom or any noble ideal, let alone anything about the tragedy.
the form (obelisk) symbolizes power, the process that got us this is all about money and corporate power, developer power, greed and ego.
what a great story, huh?
i'm embarrassed for america and what we've become.
I think we should save our valuable engery complaining about the Freedom Tower and go back to spending our valuable energy complaining about Hernan's projects.
if this gets built.
it means the terrorists win.
and with leasable space in lower mannhatten down to historic lows do we even know if it will be successful? unless they are renting to say "look at me i support freedom" tower that is.....
vado retro - yes, architectural terrorist....ones that attack our eyes will crap like this
"I think we should save our valuable engery complaining about the Freedom Tower and go back to spending our valuable energy complaining about Hernan's projects."
how about we get hernan to redesign the freedom tower and then we can bitch about that?
"and with leasable space in lower mannhatten down to historic lows do we even know if it will be successful? unless they are renting to say "look at me i support freedom" tower that is....."
from what i've been reading, silverstein hasn't been able to interest anyone. not a bit. except his own company of course
i almost hope it doesn't even get a single tenant.
the new name of the tower is---
"the tower of (silverstein's) ego"
some of the media are getting it right ---
"Freedom Tower's new design seems monumentally ordinary"
http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/mld/ledgerenquirer/news/nation/12017574.htm
thank you Dr. No... well put.
Can we as architects and architecture students start a boycott of SOM? Send no resume, interview for no jobs. Grassroots stuff. How could any self respecting architect work for this guy. Here's a good article about it in the International Herald Tribune. All except for the part on him pitying Childs.
Wow, that article was stark, wasn't it:
"....What the tower evokes, by comparison, are ancient obelisks, blown up to a preposterous scale and clad in heavy sheaths of reinforced glass - an ideal symbol for an empire enthralled with its own power, and unaware that it is fading."
We have to email Pataki. And Bloomberg. And anyone else pertinent to the situation. If this is going to proceed, and it probably will, they need to be inconvenienced by our displeasure with it. It's one thing for a journalist to paint a bleak portrait as Ouroussoff did so skillfully in that story, but we might actually get a point across if Pataki arrives to 4000 belligerent emails the next couple of days.
Think of it as helping to write a whole new chapter in your grandchildren's "History of Architecture" text books.
I sent a brief email to both Pataki and SOM's general address.
WonderK, I thought your response to calebrichards (on the previous page) was perfect - absolutely captured my attitude too.
HORRIBLE, ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLE!!!
I am deeply disappointed, especially as an SOMer. We are designing and getting built amazing architecture in China, but the most important project at the beginning of the millenium on our home turf is a complete eyesore. I don't even think it'll be loved with time, just like SOM's Bank of America Building in SF. Being bold is one thing, but being pretentious and obstinate like Mr.Childs leads to total disaster.
you americans are not alone in your disappointment on large scale "important" architecture, if anyone has seen the outcome of the competition for "chatelet les halles" in Paris (THE main transportation hub in Paris, over 800000 people passing through per day, in the heart of the city a few steps from Centre Pompidou), it's about the same story: a bunch of very interesting projects (Koolhas, MVRDV, Nouvel) entering the competition, but finally the chosen one looks like a huge supermarket, has absolutely no innovations, is only profit driven and will (in my opinion) be THE architectural failure in the heart of the city
then I can only say: ARCHITECTURE SUCKS!!!
You are so right brown666.
It's weird when you think that since more people are living in cities, they should feel more concerned about the shape it takes. But the real effect of this is that cities represent more money, the square meter price is raising, the economic potential of a retail surface is more important, and that is what shapes cities now.
An artist friend of mine told me the other day that he was going to move down south because cities are dead. There's nowhere you can go. The intellectual frenzy that had it's peak in the 60's is over.
The problem is that New York or Paris are still considered as the images of their respective countries, and the only content of these images is the celebration of economic growth. The main difference betwwen Les Halles and ground zero is the catastrophic nature of the New York site. There's much more affect associated for the whole US country itself with the freedom tower than for France with les Halles. And it's just a proof of disrespect towards the tragedy to treat this site only with such economic or security concerns.
I don't think the responsability lies in th hands of Childs though. He is only trying to do his job, if it wasn't him it would be someone else, and the design could even be worse. It is more a pollitical failure that a design problem at this point. If this is about architecture, it doesn't proove that architecture suck: it just prooves it's powerless.
why is everyone sending emails to pataki and som - okay, I know why...
but how about sending a couple to silverstein - the root of the problem, he's the one paying for this crap to disgrace the NY skyline - all I'm saying is don't let him off the hook by overlooking his contribution to this failed project.
does anyone remember the energy, creativity and hope of the proposals that muschamp curated for the ground zero project (nytimes). like them or not, it's
just pathetic how completely banal this response is to the context. think about the context of this project, and this is what we end up with?
if we all contribute one dollar we could prob. pay for rem's fee - time to pick up the bat phone mr. pataki - hope the line runs straight to the oma cave, he does work in a cave, right?
imo - man this got under my skin this morning, ranting....if you're listening dr. no and muschamp - get on your horse and organize something quickly, they'll be sheeting and shoring next week from the looks of this proposal.
rayray, well get on it and find his e-mail (or mailing address and phone #)a security risk (the old design) once the say the buget
sorry, i was typing two things at once.....disregard all after phone #
looks like rem's captive city from delirious ny is coming to fruition -- in more ways than one. (can someone post the image -- you know the one)
personally, I always thought the Eisenman/Holl/et al proposal would have been brilliant at answering the concerns we all have now -- ie, that it's turning into a developer project of just another boring crap tower -- the eisenman scheme was for developer towers and the absurdity they represented.
architorturealist - here you go, choose the destination of your choice, the areas
of "interest" speak volumes....wish that I could offer you something more direct,
but I'm sure that requires some connections - will look though, in the meantime try these out.
http://www.silversteinproperties.com/contact.htm
liberty bell, thanks, you know, I just think it's obvious we all want good things to happen at ground zero. We are all rooting for it so to speak but our frustration manifests itself in very different ways.
I bet they would actually pay attention to what we had to say if we formed a PAC (political action committee). We should raise enough money to hire Howard Dean to call up Pataki and shout at him.
between this thread and the Hernan P.s.1 thread we are all coming off as a bunch of jealouse architects enviouse that the commisions were not our own....the two extremes of architecture, corperate collaboration and the inividual avante-garde taking place in the same city and neither able to satisfy our own design sensibilities, albeit for two totally differant programs and cultural signifigance.
I briefly read the front page of the NYtimes this morn and I read that the base of the tower would be a 200 ft. high concrete wall, WTF!!. I feel that this tower is becoming more a symbol of misunderstood realities than a unifying force in the aftermath of a horrible time in US history. "Fascism" is the word that sprung to mind when I overviewed the article. The tower lacks poerty and good intent. It has written all over it - back the fuck off. What a waste of opportunity to have architecture truly work for us. I think deep down I knew that a poets and developers don't mix. I have to give props to Libeskind for hanging in there for so long and thru these guys charades.
Well I must say its a good thing Columbus took so long to discover America and for us to claim independance. What if we would have been established in 1670 AD...would the tower only be 1670 feet, a close second to the Taipei 101 (missing world tallest by a foot). Holding on to this 1776 thing doesn't make sense to me...1776 feet wait now, thats 541.32 meters, .336 miles...its just all depends on how you measure it up, just a bunch of numbers. Wait doesn't the rest of the world use the metric system, oh yeah, thats right so to them it doesn't reach up to 1776 only 541. I guess they should all switch to the imperial system, for our sake.
Reaching up to 1776 feet is just a matter of convinience and shear luck. Good thing we can build that high and that it just so happens to be taller than anything else out there for now. Hooray for us, we can do math.
Hi
From WTC Towers , Freedom Tower, --- to Redicolous Tower.
Guess the only measure are that with this the budget is known , how long time to build is calculated and known from simular buildings, but for sure this will not be the ansver, the one that bring true innovation and new jobs. I don't either bring a new architecture.
Why 1776 and not 2001?
if only this:
http://www.arcspace.com/architects/koolhaas/chinese_television/OMA.jpg
could have been there.
brightside, go here and scroll down >>
http://archinect.com/news/article.php?id=21074_0_24_0_C
john jourden posted a history of the design.
well, i just emailed all the parties a piece of my mind.
actually the building in china was recently scraped..."too costly"
while the design certainly sucks (a 200 ft tall window-less base, WTF!), this whole thing is driven by monumental stupidity. as i understand it, the driving force behind everything is that the insurance money from the original disaster requires a replacement of the original office space. hence, the unimaginative program and the necessarily tall building.
i suspect that even silvestein is savvy enough to realize that this building is a bad play given the market conditions, but the $1-2billion in insurance money is tough to pass up.
so what i'm wondering is, there must be a way to negotiate out of all this stupidity. i doubt the insurance co wants to spend all the money on a piece of schlock. i doubt that silvertein, patoki, childs or anybody wants to be eternally associated with an un-rentable piece of schlock. take all the bullshit out of the equation and it then makes sense to let the site sit for a few years until something better emerges.
we need to bring intelligence back to the discussion in america...or else we are fucked.
yes, the new CCTV tower by OMA
calebrichers:
Yes, I heard some rumours about that, but I am not sure if anything is final yet. If true they should build it in NYC instead.
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