i cannot believe the architectural press and critics
flaming of the latest design as 'not being good enough'
for their high standards. after all, what they've all
been endorsing has become the total planning disaster
that they position as a result of outside forces and
not an inadequate and insightful approach to issues.
in other words: 'if only Mr. Libeskind had his way...'
the critics want it both ways, they choose mediocrity
and enforce and champion it, yet when public opinion
shifts, they are unable to honestly judge a situation
outside their original agenda, which is in shambles.
the NY Times critic Nicolai Ouroussoff is totally off
in his assessment of this latest development, imo.
Appraisal: Fear in a soaring tower
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/06/29/news/critic.php
judgment is delivered in relation to a 'master plan'
that no longer exists and guides or informs much of
anything-- and for the better with regard to this
skyscraper. the entirety of the master plan could
not be built and yet this skyscraper would be able
to stand on its own-- the response of building a
skyscraper on this site as required by the NIST no
less, and as a building it is impressive in many
ways, regardless of the fictions people need to
believe are actually guiding site developments.
for instance, look at this 3D axonometric image:
the new freedom tower building has no spatial relation
to the 'master plan' of the site, and for the better.
the asymmetrical spiral of skyscrapers in moot at this
point, they do not spiral and rise in sequence, they
are irrelevant to the freedom towers independent rise
into the sky and out of the skyline, to declare itself
the site marker, which it would do with excellence.
the vacancy of the memorial voids are inconsequential
are resemble a quarry or archaeological excavation of
some lost era rather than anything related to the site
itself, anyway. the critiques leveled at the tower are
more accurate for the 9/11 memorial- its insularity,
its alienation, etc. there is something to work with
in the skyscraper design-- it does address the WTC
towers 1&2 in its design, deftly, having both the
heights of the towers, the mullions, the dual geo-
metries merge two skyscrapers in its envelope, as
such it is a singular reincarnation of the original
design, and the spire recalls the skyscrapers up
the island, in the regal elegance of earlier days.
the first skyscrapers often dealt with issues of
pediments, columns, and capitals in their designs,
once an entry for an early skyscraper competition
had a proposed creating a skyscraper in the form
of a colossal classical column and capital of the
ionic order. this design recalls the conundrum of
scale and symbolism, and yet finds resolution by
having the pediment base being so solid as to be
pure and singular in its presence, unmistakably.
in this case the pediment is concrete, the column
is glass and steel, and the capital is an electro-
magnetic antenna, recalling brancusi's sculpture,
which does have content in relation to freedom,
free speech, ideas, for all that is good, bad,
and complex about that: it certainly has meaning.
and for a skyscraper on this site, at this time,
it is as good a solution as could be realized.
(the deep inhumanity of such a fortress base is
not irrelevant though it is not the end of the
possibilities, either, with a changed site plan
which could rise several stories off the ground
next to the building, and possibly meet the new
tower with a bridge spanning to the memorial, a
processional connection which could tie the site
together and transform the three dimensionality
of the site by designing it to work as one place.)
with Mr. Libeskind's spiral buildings gone, and
likely replaced by retail anyways, and if those
nearby skyscrapers were to be built, they would
likely be empty plots of land for some time yet,
and so the singularity of the new freedom tower
is capable of standing on its own, and needs no
other anchors except itself to do what it does.
what it is capable of doing is resolving needs
of a skyline marker for the site in the scale
of NYC and Manhattan's density of verticality,
in a singularity that the WTC site plan would
be able to withstand if it was the only tall
building on the site. if it was alone as the
largest building by far on the site, there is
a lot of possibility to redo the site planning
based on this fact.
yet read the quotes from both Mr. Libeskind and
Mr. Arad about this new tower in relation to the
'master plan' and the '9/11 memorial' voids.
"The tower we have now is even better than the tower we had before," [Libeskind] said, congratulating Mr. Childs, with whom he famously quarreled two years ago over the first Freedom Tower design. "It asserts what the site is all about. The tower relates to the memorial, and rises in a symbolic way."
At its base, the Freedom Tower would be 200 feet square, like the twin towers and the two voids that are to be created in their place as part of the memorial. Michael Arad, one of the architects of the memorial, said the revised tower was "a quieter and simpler form" that "doesn't compete with the memorial."
from: Redesign Puts Freedom Tower on a Fortified Base
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/30/nyregion/30tower.html
there is no relation to 'the memorial' other than
this is a skyscraper on the site that shares a
footprint with the holes that are planned to be
there in the current approach. there is 'no memorial
there' for the new building to compete with, as it
is an existential void, all people in the building
would do is look down and think of how the building
could be felled and turn into one of those holes
below- a great reminder of the guilty pleasures of
skyscraper building- a memorial which celebrates
the anti-thesis of the new construction right
next to it, without adding anything to the ideas
except death, absence, fear, and if there is any
construction which is brutally unemotional it is
the modern appliqué of the current 9/11 memorial.
so too Mr. Libeskind's 'master plan' as being a
rhetorical joke in relation to this new building.
'there is no there, there' either. there is no
generation of the site from the master plan, no
spiraling skyscrapers in rising asymmetricality,
there is no meaningful relationship between any
of the buildings on the site- they are entirely
self-contained. for a skyscraper it actually is
able to work if it is a monument, yet to tie it
into the site is necessary but impossible if the
most complex design decisions are the equivalent
of ground-level/street-level plans to relate the
ideas and not transform the topography into multi-
levels, with bridges, spanish stairs even, and
an acropolis-like memorial park with connections
to the waterfront, more retail, more housing, and
community space, and less skyscraper determinism.
all around. what the site could still relate to
is a WTC memorial park around which these other
elements are woven into a grand design which is
able to then be designed in relation to the new
skyscraper and which resolves issues of scale,
rather than ignoring them. ideal would be if
there would be a way to divide up the plot to
Silverstein for the skyscraper and buy out the
rest for the remaining project, to go forward
with a new agenda for the rebuilding efforts
which is generated by the new 9/11 memorial.
why listen to the critics and their vitriol,
as when it mattered to speak up about massive
'master' planning mistakes, they were either
silent or very loud cheerleaders of the current
course which has led up to now, into mediocrity?
and when something does become a diamond in the
rough, they cannot acknowledge its pure beauty
and humbly accept defeat, and instead hold onto
an irrelevant, fractured, 'master plan' by none
other than a 'master builder' they fictionalize
and self-interestedly push as their own agenda-
when what is wrong is a result of this approach.
those who endorsed the current master plan need
to unendorse it, declare it and 'ground zero'
dead, and start fresh with new ideas and ideals,
based on common, shared values. too many of the
original warped, skewed assumptions continue to-
day in the designs, the necessity of a culture
museum next to the memorial, etc. these are non-
sensical and actually, really ignorant choices
that are uncritically praised as a self-assured
righteousness-- nothing to do with architecture,
programming, planning, and all to do with set-
in-place ideologies to conform to a too-simple,
actually 'lost' worldview that today, people of
conscience and purpose cannot be so ignorant of,
cannot disregard, cannot fantasize away the world.
the site plan is fractured and useless, the new
freedom tower is a gem. it needs relation to the
scale of the larger site, which requires a new
site plan and new goals, it does what apparently
was necessary and in this incarnation is a superb
and lasting tribute to what was and is right about
skyscrapers in NYC, and it can be improved-- but to
scorn it as not good enough, and to hold it up to
the 'master plan' by Mr. Libeskind is an insult
to its actual worth, value, design insight, and
sensitivity, including that of security. love it,
hate it- it is the best skyscraper for the site,
as it has developed, with the broken master plan,
and this rises despite it, and forces a new plan
which can now be generated by a WTC Memorial Park.
brian thomas carroll: research-design-development
architecture, education, electromagnetism
http://www.mnartists.org/brian_carroll
http://www.electronetwork.org/bc/