The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey...has been so chastened by the cost overruns and construction delays that it declined to hold even a modest ribbon-cutting. When a bureaucracy turns down a major opportunity to pat itself on the back, you know things have turned sour. Turned acid, really.
Still, everyone seems to agree that the main hall, which stretches beneath a glass and white-steel roof and which Calatrava calls the Oculus, is beautiful. But I didn't find it beautiful...
— the Los Angeles Times
"...at least not in the way that Calatrava's finest work, fluid and precise, often is. I found it structurally overwrought and emotionally underwhelming, straining for higher meaning, eager to wring some last drops of mournful power from a site that is already crammed with official, semi-official and indirect memorials."
For related coverage of Santiago Calatrava's $4B "elaborate headstone in the crowded ground zero graveyard," as Hawthorne calls it, check out these links:
7 Comments
What I loathe about Calatrava's "work" is that it's precisely not a work of Architecture, his work is the singular expression of an "architect" that never regarded site, or context, that important. His addition to the museum in Milwaukee, the way it clumsily connects to the existing, is not unlike a teenage boys having sex for the first time, and not sure what a vagina looks like, and thusly misses, and misses, and misses. Ultimately culminating in a premature ejaculate of wasted dreams, and a disappointed companion.
Calatrava should, connect with an architect, and let her guide his erection for flying carcasses, in a way that is pleasing to the end user, and delays his own gratification.
I like how the review pretends to review "the architecture" but obviously has its mind already made up with a series of dubious narratives. The site is crowded with memorials? Actually it's in desperate need of anything visually interesting. But you know that praising a politically "acidic" building just isn't cool. The only reason projects like these are so expensive now is the insanely nepotistic relationships that exist now between private and public interests, but cool, blame the architect. It's 4 billion dollars because that's how many people had to be paid off to build the thing.
^ ++++
Agreed, with the above two comments. The World Trade Center site is cool. If the construction blockades ever go away, it'll be even cooler. The transit station is great outside, cool and calm inside and has some quirky detailing here and there. Reading again and again about cost and spikes and bones, I was surprised how overblown the critics have been.
If anything, the only good point this article makes is that if something beautiful costs more than expected actually becomes built, then in 20 years no one will care to remember what it cost in the first place.
Chris, that;s it exactly....with Calatrava saying: "Go ahead and bitch, it's done."
Was there in the summer and got this interesting shot (praying mantis’ preening The Mantis)....other than the Memorial element itself, this piece seemed to be the only thing there that's was breathing.
Carerra each one of those buckets in the lifts were custom made, all 55 or so. word on the street
I found it to be very underwhelming. There were some shitty details too. The tailbone looking portion was crappy looking like it was built by some half ass contractors. I would expect Italian Renaissance sculptor quality for 4 billion. It also does not feel at all like it belongs on that particular site or in NYC in general...maybe LA...
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