A federal judge ruled yesterday that there were enough similarities between David M. Childs's 2003 design for the Freedom Tower at the World Trade Center site and a 1999 student architectural project that a lawsuit against Mr. Childs for copyright violation could proceed. Richard Meier goes to bat for David Childs and said he found "no significant resemblance" between the designs, nor any basis for Mr. Shine's copyright. NYTimes | Curbed | previously, more...
18 Comments
I wonder what Pelli, as the studio instructor, has to say about all of this.
I'm surprised that another high-profile architect's opinion would even be admissable in court.
I wasn't aware that SOM invented the "perimeter structural diagrid," like Meier says... Isn't that a sort of 50% defense, at the most? After all, the major resemblance is in the overall shape. On the other hand, too bad Ictinus and Callicrates never copywrote the Greek Temple.
good point paul - is meier somehow an "expert witness" for the defense? if so, is there a history of friendship between meier and childs that could look like a conflict of interests?
Expert witnesses in this trial should not harbour any personal or professional bias... and Richard Meier most definitely does, regardless of his relationship with Childs.
I think that it's a difficult case for Shine to win. Guy Nordensen has in the past also presented a twisting tower which in fact appeared in the NYTimes-Herbie Muschamp proposal collection for Lower Manhattan. So has Calatrava. It's actually quite easy to turn to architectural discourse itself and deploy the zeitgeist to deflate Shine's case.
Seeing how this was Shine's thesis project at Yale, doesn't Yale ultimately hold the rights to this project???
i know that most schools own the rights to student work (models, drawings, renderings, etc.), but does this rule also apply to intellectual property?
i thought it did...but then, i have very little intellect.
BTY, Childs looks like he is going to crap his pants in that picture
for 3 years the school owns the work... hence his Copyright in 2004...
Paul, I am fairly certain the rule also applies to Intellectual Property. When this first made news last Fall, one of our professors put up a headline in the studio along with other related articles concerning intellectual property.
Haven't followed it since then, but a small group of us agreed at that time that although it was certainly shadey business [as usual] that it would probably hold up according to law.
i cant wait to see the sweat pour of his brow during the Charlie Rose show on Monday. What lame excuses will he be trying to pass off. If stealing were not enough of a crime, surely his latest 'design' also breaks some kind of moral code. But this is the USA and he does have the freedom to design fortresses and what ever he fancies.
I wonder what implications this trial will have for the design profession. If Childs loses, does this set a precedent for how we document conceptual work?
no to the above. it just changes how firms steal projects and ideas from other designers.
My ex-boyfriend designed a set of buildings with plants growing in large towers and D. Lebiskind was at his graduation to give him an award and to speak to the assembly. This was in Scotland, btw. When I saw D.L.'s design for the World Trade Center site, I thought he might have gotten ideas from my ex-boyfriend--the flower gardens in the upper-glass-clad portions of D.L.'s buildings. If anything, the correlation was exciting. Thought it would have been even more exciting, if he indeed was inspired as such, if he gave credit for it.
Coincidence, unconscious absorption, conscious inspiration?
Dec. 2002 D.L. Design:
In the original Memory Foundations proposal, the Freedom Tower was to include a vertical garden memorial known as "Gardens of the World." --Wikipedia
June 2002 Student Design:
The flower towers as a vertical play of moves. - Five hydroponic growing towers are proposed to begin the flower production line situated around the upper canal turning circle--Quote from RIBA Presidents Medal 2002 Website
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