WTC Events Didn't Cloud Skyscraper Construction
By ADA LOUISE HUXTABLE
<http://www.realestatejournal.com/propertyreport/architecture/20040827-
huxtable.html>
[the following article examines the skyscraper building type
and reassures of its continued and timeless meaningfulness
in architectural-engineering construction. as such, polemical
to questions related to building a skyscraper at the WTC, can
be inferred from both the title and unending praise of what is
described as an iconic form which, as a symbol, is a 'gigantic
instrument of market economics' which enables philosophical
questions, at its best. the counterpoint, in this article, is that it
may not be the 'universal' building type for every site/context,
and with the WTC rebuilding in mind, could also be seen as:
'Inherently, enormous buildings are inhumane. This has become more
pronounced as the means of production and the sense of craft have been
replaced by complex technologies and more formal and abstract design
that emphasizes a sleek, depersonalized scalelessness. Exhilarating
and alienating, promising and threatening, their ambiguity is
inescapable. Right now, the sheer excitement of being able to do
unprecedented things overwhelms everything else.'
Now, at the WTC with a skyscraper-park already fait-accompli
by the true-believers in modernist-ideology, would it not be a
wise decision to question the above paragraph in relation to
the goals of the WTC site, 9/11 memorial, and commerce in
which these many complexities may not work in the 'filing-
cabinet' temporal/spatial/psychological division of cubical
micro-zoning and commerce-as-is, in this most important
and architecturally unusual site? Is the skyscraper really
a 'form' of an idea of publicness-- if so-- what skyscraper
that has ever been built has ever been recognized for its
publicness, in terms of space, place, the ground, context,
besides its role as a form to be photographed and toured,
and accessed via varying levels of social inclusiveness?
Today, even the Whitehouse has been off-limits, so will
the towers of freedom of commerce always be open for
all citizens, or only those who believe in market gods?
As a building type there is no question that the skyscraper
is as important as, and maybe even an evolution of the
obelisk, now inhabited, but as a building type is this type
of vertical strip-mall (of whatever quality or refinement)
the most powerful, self-communicating, shared vision of
experience, and does it offer through its artifice a better,
informed, grounded, peaceful, and productive role in
the reconfiguration of the city, post 9/11? That is, can it
be ignored, all the issues with the skyscraper and 9/11,
rebuilding with an architectural patch (equivalent to an
internet patch for computer software, still full of bugs)--
and this is to represent freedoms of market capitalism?
I thought the 9/11 memorial and WTC reconstruction
had some other purpose, but that obviously got lost in
the rhetoric, in the lack of public peer-review (online
views, including, not only incorporated and spun as
if the truth, as the propagandists are good at doing).
The public square, the open space, the ground is, it
is hard to even have to 'argue' this as a position' of
enormous importance, yet when a 1600' skyscraper
is in the vicinity, looking over your shoulder will be a
building that is anything but a human experience-- it
is the idea, robotically executed and extended, of a
machinery of architects with the good book (pattern
book) and all the cliches which equate the 'master'
architect with some idiosyncratic evaluation of form-
building rather than the actual complexity of building,
and building again and again, to achieve something
beyond the architect, beyond architectural one-liners,
and a defensiveness of invested-critics who validate
such automated development of 'how things should
be, because that is how they worked then' -- versus
a new context, requestioning old assumptions, and
making changes to approaches that maybe history
has something to offer, more than what just passed.
As such, a longer-view of architectural building types
would offer the square, park, tiered buildings that can
reach up, over a succession, to the new heights of
new skyscrapers around the periphery, so that in-
stead of one very tall building, the site at ground-
zero could rise progressively to a circular wall of
varying styles, heights, visions of skyscrapers and
tall buildings, experiments in ideas, a community
that respects what is lost, allows for questions and
time needed to comprehend the questions, and to
see opportunities for better, more innovative, and
entirely different decentralized -- collaboratively-
planned multiple skyscraper developments which
are not isolated acts but coordinated to create a
3D/4D urban experience of space, time, and place.
As such, it should be validated that Mr. Libeskind's
design is quite poetic, it is hard to ignore this though
becomes necessary when the issue is the practical
aspect of rebuilding in relation to 'big ideas', dreams.
There is something very poetic about juxtaposing the
symbolic forms of the Statue of Liberty, and also the
Freedom Tower, -- as an idea. It offers a synopsis of
much of the architectural span between these times,
from one of symbolic literal representation to one of
symbolic abstract expressionism or impressionism.
And yet, as an ideal this is informative, interesting
even, as a building with this as its form, it is more
than that, it is all the issues and inhumane-aspects
of skyscraper building types with this as its facade.
And architecture, as a whole, is more complex than
this, surely. And even moreso than the engineering
aestheticians which can try to make such ideas into
inhabitable spaces, maybe even safe. Though, the
cultural, imaginative, economic, psychological, and
community aspects which may be lost in doing so
may be many times the cost of this building, which
may also be lost in disregarding such basic facts.
Mr. Libeskind's tower, as an obelisk, would be an
incredible symbol to see in relation, and in a much
smaller, human scale, a freedom obelisk potentially,
to see this by way of site-line to the statue of liberty,
through some visual passage way, bringing people
to a new way to encounter access to the .US shores.
This same idea, at this scale, still would speak yet
without doing the damage of ignoring what needs
to be done on larger scales and wider-scopes no
matter how profane a conjecture this may seem.
Bad ideas remain bad ideas, even after they are
built. And it the skyscraper as building type is an
extremely unwise decision for this cultural site.
It is hoped that those who have held up the mantel
of the movements which created these cities will
also recognized when the time has come to also
question their necessary, critical function to change
in order to survive-- to imagine with historical view,
the fullness that is architectural form, and its ideas.
The building of skyscrapers, on the WTC site, says
nothing, informs of nothing, offers nothing, except
tourist photographs and architectural photoshoots.
The image of people with cameras pointed to the
sky, when standing below ground, is the icon of
what is going to represent the connection between
what happened on the ground on that day in 2001,
and what happened in the sky, as a detached and
amazing spectacle, which was out of reach and is
no better understood today as to what happened,
why, and what was lost, and what has survived in
its fury. A meteor crashed, the dinosaur of building
types wants to plant itself all about the site, but the
environment to sustain it has also changed, people
have changed--- architecture has not yet done so.
There is every possibility for a creative, inventive,
and open approach to planning the WTC site that
remains to be explored. It is hoped that those who
have got the 'religion' of skyscraper building in their
blood will be wise enough to realize that this is just
another building type of many, and times do change.
Skyscrapers should serve the site by respecting it,
and not try to dominate and obliviate what is there
by detaching the sky from the ground, and people,
at the shared scale of human beings, not machines.
brian thomas carroll: architecture, education, electromagnetism
http://www.mnartists.org/artistHome.do?rid=13102
http://www.electronetwork.org/bc/
--
The Design-L list for art and architecture, since 1992...
To subscribe, send mailto:design-l-subscribe-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx.
To signoff, send mailto:design-l-unsubscribe-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx.
Visit archives: http://lists.psu.edu/archives/design-l.html
By ADA LOUISE HUXTABLE
<http://www.realestatejournal.com/propertyreport/architecture/20040827-
huxtable.html>
[the following article examines the skyscraper building type
and reassures of its continued and timeless meaningfulness
in architectural-engineering construction. as such, polemical
to questions related to building a skyscraper at the WTC, can
be inferred from both the title and unending praise of what is
described as an iconic form which, as a symbol, is a 'gigantic
instrument of market economics' which enables philosophical
questions, at its best. the counterpoint, in this article, is that it
may not be the 'universal' building type for every site/context,
and with the WTC rebuilding in mind, could also be seen as:
'Inherently, enormous buildings are inhumane. This has become more
pronounced as the means of production and the sense of craft have been
replaced by complex technologies and more formal and abstract design
that emphasizes a sleek, depersonalized scalelessness. Exhilarating
and alienating, promising and threatening, their ambiguity is
inescapable. Right now, the sheer excitement of being able to do
unprecedented things overwhelms everything else.'
Now, at the WTC with a skyscraper-park already fait-accompli
by the true-believers in modernist-ideology, would it not be a
wise decision to question the above paragraph in relation to
the goals of the WTC site, 9/11 memorial, and commerce in
which these many complexities may not work in the 'filing-
cabinet' temporal/spatial/psychological division of cubical
micro-zoning and commerce-as-is, in this most important
and architecturally unusual site? Is the skyscraper really
a 'form' of an idea of publicness-- if so-- what skyscraper
that has ever been built has ever been recognized for its
publicness, in terms of space, place, the ground, context,
besides its role as a form to be photographed and toured,
and accessed via varying levels of social inclusiveness?
Today, even the Whitehouse has been off-limits, so will
the towers of freedom of commerce always be open for
all citizens, or only those who believe in market gods?
As a building type there is no question that the skyscraper
is as important as, and maybe even an evolution of the
obelisk, now inhabited, but as a building type is this type
of vertical strip-mall (of whatever quality or refinement)
the most powerful, self-communicating, shared vision of
experience, and does it offer through its artifice a better,
informed, grounded, peaceful, and productive role in
the reconfiguration of the city, post 9/11? That is, can it
be ignored, all the issues with the skyscraper and 9/11,
rebuilding with an architectural patch (equivalent to an
internet patch for computer software, still full of bugs)--
and this is to represent freedoms of market capitalism?
I thought the 9/11 memorial and WTC reconstruction
had some other purpose, but that obviously got lost in
the rhetoric, in the lack of public peer-review (online
views, including, not only incorporated and spun as
if the truth, as the propagandists are good at doing).
The public square, the open space, the ground is, it
is hard to even have to 'argue' this as a position' of
enormous importance, yet when a 1600' skyscraper
is in the vicinity, looking over your shoulder will be a
building that is anything but a human experience-- it
is the idea, robotically executed and extended, of a
machinery of architects with the good book (pattern
book) and all the cliches which equate the 'master'
architect with some idiosyncratic evaluation of form-
building rather than the actual complexity of building,
and building again and again, to achieve something
beyond the architect, beyond architectural one-liners,
and a defensiveness of invested-critics who validate
such automated development of 'how things should
be, because that is how they worked then' -- versus
a new context, requestioning old assumptions, and
making changes to approaches that maybe history
has something to offer, more than what just passed.
As such, a longer-view of architectural building types
would offer the square, park, tiered buildings that can
reach up, over a succession, to the new heights of
new skyscrapers around the periphery, so that in-
stead of one very tall building, the site at ground-
zero could rise progressively to a circular wall of
varying styles, heights, visions of skyscrapers and
tall buildings, experiments in ideas, a community
that respects what is lost, allows for questions and
time needed to comprehend the questions, and to
see opportunities for better, more innovative, and
entirely different decentralized -- collaboratively-
planned multiple skyscraper developments which
are not isolated acts but coordinated to create a
3D/4D urban experience of space, time, and place.
As such, it should be validated that Mr. Libeskind's
design is quite poetic, it is hard to ignore this though
becomes necessary when the issue is the practical
aspect of rebuilding in relation to 'big ideas', dreams.
There is something very poetic about juxtaposing the
symbolic forms of the Statue of Liberty, and also the
Freedom Tower, -- as an idea. It offers a synopsis of
much of the architectural span between these times,
from one of symbolic literal representation to one of
symbolic abstract expressionism or impressionism.
And yet, as an ideal this is informative, interesting
even, as a building with this as its form, it is more
than that, it is all the issues and inhumane-aspects
of skyscraper building types with this as its facade.
And architecture, as a whole, is more complex than
this, surely. And even moreso than the engineering
aestheticians which can try to make such ideas into
inhabitable spaces, maybe even safe. Though, the
cultural, imaginative, economic, psychological, and
community aspects which may be lost in doing so
may be many times the cost of this building, which
may also be lost in disregarding such basic facts.
Mr. Libeskind's tower, as an obelisk, would be an
incredible symbol to see in relation, and in a much
smaller, human scale, a freedom obelisk potentially,
to see this by way of site-line to the statue of liberty,
through some visual passage way, bringing people
to a new way to encounter access to the .US shores.
This same idea, at this scale, still would speak yet
without doing the damage of ignoring what needs
to be done on larger scales and wider-scopes no
matter how profane a conjecture this may seem.
Bad ideas remain bad ideas, even after they are
built. And it the skyscraper as building type is an
extremely unwise decision for this cultural site.
It is hoped that those who have held up the mantel
of the movements which created these cities will
also recognized when the time has come to also
question their necessary, critical function to change
in order to survive-- to imagine with historical view,
the fullness that is architectural form, and its ideas.
The building of skyscrapers, on the WTC site, says
nothing, informs of nothing, offers nothing, except
tourist photographs and architectural photoshoots.
The image of people with cameras pointed to the
sky, when standing below ground, is the icon of
what is going to represent the connection between
what happened on the ground on that day in 2001,
and what happened in the sky, as a detached and
amazing spectacle, which was out of reach and is
no better understood today as to what happened,
why, and what was lost, and what has survived in
its fury. A meteor crashed, the dinosaur of building
types wants to plant itself all about the site, but the
environment to sustain it has also changed, people
have changed--- architecture has not yet done so.
There is every possibility for a creative, inventive,
and open approach to planning the WTC site that
remains to be explored. It is hoped that those who
have got the 'religion' of skyscraper building in their
blood will be wise enough to realize that this is just
another building type of many, and times do change.
Skyscrapers should serve the site by respecting it,
and not try to dominate and obliviate what is there
by detaching the sky from the ground, and people,
at the shared scale of human beings, not machines.
brian thomas carroll: architecture, education, electromagnetism
http://www.mnartists.org/artistHome.do?rid=13102
http://www.electronetwork.org/bc/
--
The Design-L list for art and architecture, since 1992...
To subscribe, send mailto:design-l-subscribe-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx.
To signoff, send mailto:design-l-unsubscribe-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx.
Visit archives: http://lists.psu.edu/archives/design-l.html