1 World Trade Center, the iconic Ground Zero skyscraper formerly known as the Freedom Tower, this summer became the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere by some measures. It’s not, however, the building that Daniel Libeskind, the site’s master planner, conceived of over a decade ago. [...]
But as the opening of 1 World Trade Center approaches, a curious thing has happened. Libeskind has quietly transformed into one of the site’s most ardent boosters.
— newyorker.com
6 Comments
The replacement tower, or towers in the complex, need to be timeless. I think 1 WTC sort of is. It is very clean looking, like a beveled jewel. I still wonder how the floor plans look as one climbs up the building.
I saw Libeskind's initial master plan for which he was commissioned. It looked like a small collection of stalagmites. They were trendy. Much like Gehry or Mayne, it was something where the "theory" had to be explained to you. For an important building, which will be used and admired by many, no explanations should be necessary.
I think the building currently being erected is a more enduring architectural statement. It's not stunning in a jaw dropping sense, but it's very nice.
I tend to agree that it will work as the forward mast to the ship that is Manhattan.
Libeskind said that his evolution was triggered by a simple realization: he went from fighting to collaborating because he realized that he needed to work within the existing system—that is, the more-or-less democratic process of rebuilding the site.
There you are, the problem of America in a nutshell: this was in no way a democratic process; it was a developer using political influence and money to get exactly what he wanted, popular opinion be damned. And SOM was happy to reap the benefits, too.
What a debacle. The whole fiasco is emblematic of why the US *still* hasn't gotten its shit together, over a decade after an event that *should* have been an opportunity to coalesce around bigger ideas. "Freedom Tower"? Freedom to buy my "right" to stomp all over anyone without my fortune, in other words. We're pathetic.
I'm trying to understand what you are objecting to, Donna. That Libskind's original design wasn't executed? That the site as executed was a negotiation between developer and the city?
The developer didn't really get what he wanted there at all - the site is much, much less densely planned that they original had proposed... right?
My personal opinion: thank goodness lower Manhattan didn't become a jagged dystopian sculpture garden by Studio Libeskind.
Ugh, I had a whole screed written out then hit the wrong button and lost it. Maybe it's just as well.
Basically, I have no objection to Libeskind's design not being built; I object to his characterization, in the article, of the process over the last 12 years at the WTC site as being in any way related to a democratic process. I think the calls to rebuild and memorialize so soon after the fact, when we even still don't know how that event has affected our society, are crass. and I think the petty fighting over design responsibility and credit are selfish and reflect the worst of our culture.
Got it. I don't disagree with anything you said.
Having visited the site this year, I have to agree with observant that the tower is a fairly elegant one, and I rather like it, at least as much as I like any inhuman modernist glass skyscraper. :)
I think the low museum buildings are really ugly and uninspiring. But the open space on the site is welcome, and I found the memorial fountain to be a moving statement of loss. I didn't expect to be as affected by it as I was. The serene, soothing, almost benevolent sound of the water falling into the footprint, and the ultimately disappearing into what might as well be a bottomless void, seemed to me achingly melancholic. The names on the bronze plaques surrounding the fountains are water jet cut into the metal - they are voids, another reminder of loss. The symbolism is abstract and yet clear to anyone visiting, trained designers or not - a sign of an effective public memorial. In a sense, this is a kind of anti-memorial, so clear is the sense of emptiness there.
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