Well, if you put it that way ("say what you want about libeskind"), then what's the point of discussing it here?

touche...i was lead more by my emotions....i guess the point i was trying to make had less to do with the design and more about the politics of destruction childs used to undermine Daniel...

Why the hell is Nina Libeskind calling Daniel, "Danielle?" Is there some kinda Dom/Sub thing going on in their relationship?

Weird.

Pataki was calling him the same thing.

The show should have also pointed out that Libeskind revised his own plan early on and compromised heavily on the scheme due to pressures from the LMDC and the city. The spire became simpler, the hanging gardens were removed, and the bathtub went from 70' below grade to 30'. In the Frontline special Libeskind was portrayed as an idealist who only cared about the grander vision but when asked by his client he settled for mediocrity just as Childs would have done.

i thought Daniel's mistake was compromising the first time. the argument would have been, see how rigid and uncompromising this guy is, we can't work with him. in compromising Daniel set himself up for this argument, see Daniel, you've compromised once, do it again. it was always an untennable position for libeskind, he would always be placed and re-placed or recast in whatever light Childs wanted to paint him. what could have happened is that Libeskind could have stepped away from the project stating what was obvious to all - even the head of the LMDC, Betts, a republican - that Childs was fucking everything up, and made building the vision approved by Pataki and others impossible. Childs didn't settle for mediocrity, he proposed mediocrity and it would have been a pleasure to watch and hear the public and architecture community collectively groan at his viagraesque vision.

man. . . i missed the pbs doc for beers and friends. when is the next showing? anybody knoe?

Know. not knoe. i didn't have that many berrss. . .

shit. beers.

I didn't know the back story until this PBS program. It was apparent from the beginning that Daniel is portrayed as the underdog and David represents the status quo. I watched for the point where the compromise would be clear. It was the lease holder, I forget his name, that kept Daniel in the game.

SOMs position was untenable. Daniel's answer proved to be the stronger for public opinion then SOM. This kept the Mayor backing Daniel. The lease holder wanted to have some control with his wallet and hired SOM, but in the end would go with the mayor who would answer to public opinion.

It's a strange story of "design in the public eye". It's a compelling struggle, but I think the final design is weak.

it wasn't the lease holder, Silverstein, that kept Daniel in the game, it was the LMDC and Pataki's legacy that kept him in the game. the design was weak because as one guy said, "A camel is horse designed by committee." that seems to sum it up. i don't buy into the idea that just because Libeskind had not done a large scale structure, he was incapable of doing one in Manhattan - that just seems ridiculous. you could also see when SOM's team dropped out of the competition that was a political manuever on Silverstein's behalf in order to give Childs some distance from that process and allow him to design earlier without the fanfare.

i still can't believe, or at least its hard for me to, that a bush republican saw through Childs bullshit and shitty design, to force Childs to actually conceed to Libeskinds demands, rather interesting i thought.

betadinesutures - i'm not convinced that pataki 'saw through Childs bullshit and shitty design' so much as he had already invested enormous political capital in the masterplan that libeskind had produced. the whole struggle is really between who has the right to dictate how the site will be rebuilt - the state/lmdc or silverstein? clearly, silverstein has the upper hand legally and financially; pataki is beating him around the head with the notions of 'popular opinion'.

i agree that the documentary trashed childs, almost unnecessarily, but don't weep too much for danny. (does anyone remember how much they trashed the think team in the press during the final weeks of the masterplan competition? karmic payback is a bitch isn't it nina?) team libeskind has always been trying to reach for something that was never properly given to them - which is the design for any of the buildings. they've tried very hard to play the same game as pataki and force their way into the process. and, yes, it is that difficult to do a tower. it's probably less of a testament to his skill than the reality that someone like silverstein was never, ever going to let someone inexperienced lead the process, no matter who had triumphed (well, maybe foster could have broken that trend).

As usual I will have to play devils advocate here - it is important to remember the tough spot that Silverstein is in. I have been following the Wall Street Journal stories over the past several years and he is in a tight spot. Remember, he is legally obligated to build "x" sq. ft. of office space and he is currently continuing to pay rent on the property. I felt that Libeskind is completely out of touch with reality in this regard and Childs is more in tune with the business aspect of the situation. I know what some of you are thinking "business? what about design?" well I think that Libeskind represents the weakness of many architects in that they are only concerned with the integrity of the design. The WTC was and will be an office building that is meant to generate revenue. It is located in the financial capital of the world and to use it for any other purpose would be out of touch with what lower Manhattan is all about.

The one recurring though I had was that this whole conflict has spiraled into nothing more than a battle of the egos and it kind of makes me sick. I don't think anyone cares about the legacy just about getting their face in the most publications.

I think this "dilemma" all starts with Pataki by endorsing a scheme for a building instead of a master plan he laid the ground work by becoming personally involved (trumping the process of the jury) which gave Libeskind the "right" to chisel into the architect - client relationship between Silverstein and Childs. If anything Frontline did a bad job by not clarifying this issue more thoroughly - as well as not explaining why a renter like Silverstein gets all the insurance money and the Port Authority gets zero... But as for the initial choice of Libeskind - made by Pataki, and the resonances of Libeskind's heroic and sermonized metaphors legitimatized his claims to the site through the power of the Governor’s office.

It seems what Tod William's said weights heavy on my statements as in the end it does come down to the fact that in Manhattan real estate is $ and loss doesn't factor into this equation. I am remind of the line in Fight Club which Ed Norton's character says about being a recall coordinator:

"My job was to apply the formula. It's simple arithmetic. You take the number of vehicles in the field (A) and multiply it by the probable rate of failure (B), multiply the result by the average out-of-court settlement (C). A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one."

I think the same idiom can be applied to the way this process and the events of 9-11 can be summed up. Its especially angering in light of the human cost and the egos surrounding this quandray. The end of the Frontline presentation represented this well with both the Libeskind and Childs sides smiling and orating about the building and what it replaces etc - with the juxtaposition of the mournful lamenting man with his two cups of tea... show that in the end this process of a monument isn't for the mourners its for all of us, who didn't experience loss to increase our patriotism. This is why I still believe nothing should be built there.

The documentary really did reveal daniel as a dreamer who was fighting for intergrity pitted against the corporate lies that run rampid in NYC. I suspect that some of this may have been true but not to the degree that was portrayed.
SOM pulled out of the masterplan comp at the end because they were appointed architect by Silverstein before the unveiling of the winner and did not want to face a conflict in interest problem in the end of it all. I don't believe the end product is truly a design by commitee gesture, I think it is a design that has been forced to acknowledge principles that it clearly ignored from the outset, principles that were endorsed by Pataki. This was the big mistake that in the end forced the hand of SOM and making their egotistical design a big fat turd.

I understand that big money, business and real estate is involved but the site MUST be more than moola for Silverstein. The entire site plan has been further compromised since, with the design of the memorial, and will be essentially unrecognizable in the end. (isn't it always??) With that said, SOM's design I think was put in its proper context when Daniel said it is a tower that is fine in China but not at WTC.