hi Cheryl. interesting points of view and i agree.
though there is a lot of possibility that is un-
explored (non-architectural, maybe even).
for example, the national park service could take
over the memorial site as it currently is, and the
army corp. of engineers could (and said they would)
develop it. 'the cathedral wall' refers to the ruin
that was left standing in the pile of rubble, of the
charcoal-darkened facade of one of the Word Trade Center
buildings, the windowless wall that held such majesty
in the days after the collapse and which has since
been disappeared, into a warehouse, and now planned
to be hidden underground, out of site, out of mind,
when that was the symbol that solidified the event
more than any other. here is that symbol in a park:
http://mnartists.org/work.do?rid=42192
right now i am working on drawings of a basic idea
of how the site could be transformed by raising the
entire block the memorial is on, by several stories.
then on top of the block, to have roofgardens/park,
in which the volumes of the footprints materialize
above in the park. for the 'ruin' it would be up on
a landscaped mound surrounded by boulders, grass,
paths, which surround it as it rises above the site.
the site lines could be made so that a ramp across
the nearby freeway could link the ferries, and in
the water the 9/11 wall ruin could be seen. on the
opposite end, by the Calatrava transit hub, there
could be a giant set of 'spanish stairs' designed
to allow access to the gardens and park, and also
into the buildings multiple levels which could be
able to absorb the exhibition space of the culture
museum in its basic programming, not as a separate
building, which could then would have more control
over outside exhibitions if part of an interpretive
museum, etc. as planned for the site already.
bridges would connect the site to the second, third,
and fourth stories of nearby buildings, which would
be tied together by zoning rules about step backs
from the footprints, as if the ripples of waves
from a movement in the water, these footprints
would generate the basic elevation/relation of
buildings to one another. with roofgardens and
patios for restaurants, skyways for inter-building
connections of safety and commerce and transit.
the WTC memorial site could utilize building
materials than span architectural histories,
as with primitive/archaic designs (ref. stonehenge
influenced) with the facade ruin, boullée with the
scale and formal geometry, piranesi with the urban
relationships, - materials ranging from classical
columns, to stained glass, to national park-rustic
aesthetics of wood and stone, to concrete, steel,
glass, all working in a single archaeological-and-
architectural composition. an american acropolis,
though a rich and vibrant valley which rises from
the ground, which has special relationships that
are not directly on the street but require some
involvement, procession, ritual even. lights in
each corners of the original footprints would be
able to reenact the towers in the skyline every
memorial day for a hour or so (for example).
by absorbing the programming into the site plan
the dearth of modern architecture of seperate
sculptural buildings would be overridden by a
collaborative effort of the site to function
as one giant development/building/place and
as such zoning rules/concepts would tie very
different architectures together by how they
approach the goals and aims of the planning.
buildings around the site could rise like a
Moshe Safdie design on city-scale, with roof
gardens, roof theaters. people, artists would
have a central role in designing sculptures,
in contributing stained glass, paintings, and
other events. in such a design, even touching
events like the cows donated by the African
tribal members could find a home on the site.
the freedom tower, if its base was halfed in
height in terms of solid concrete without any
windows could, potentially, be a place for a
massive art project to make a relief sculpture
in the facade, or to have a 'company 911' fire
engine sculpture of concrete and metal which
has a truck and ladder connecting into the
building, to have firefighters going up the
ladder, one by one, into the building, and
at the buildings facade in an opening, to
have them reaching out to let their fellow
fighters into the building, as another way
of acknowledging what is going on, through
art and sculpture and space and place. and
a bridge could connect the freedom tower
and the WTC memorial across the street,
from ground level, and could also be made
accessible from the park, as part of a
procession throughout the site, out of
buildings into the site/garden/park, and
out of the park/garden/site into surrounding
buildings.
the second footprint it so complicated to
draw without modeling it (and my resources
are nil so cannot invest in making a model)
yet it is m.c. escher like in space, if one
takes the cubic footprint, puts it partially
inside and outside within the park, and then
below in the larger memorial site, it exists
as an internal cubic meditative volume while
the rest of the building can be open for
programming, an immense place which to build
out various goals. in the second footprint,
people could walk in the footprint outside
in the park, which would lead them back into
the main building, just under the park, which
then would put them into a space that is an
inversion of the original buildings, where
they look out of a screen of the mullions
of the original WTC facade, with the bronze
sculpture that survived that day at its
center, with transparent pool of water to
see the sky above. transiting the site by
elevator and staircases as did those in the
original buildings, to get a sense of what
it must have been like in such a place and
time. bronze, metal, concrete, plaster or
other sculptures of people could occupy
the site, in various arrangements of the
human and the beyond, which artists could
sculpt both inside and outside.
maybe there is a sculpture of cows, for
instance, in the park. it would be a place
that even for the hardest core of those who
were happy to see the towers fall, that if
they were to come into this space they would
be overwhelmed by the regenerative beauty,
the symbolism, and the triumph over death
and despair. they would be forced to have
to reconcile their hatred with overwhelming
beauty and the truth of the events. that is
the architectural goal, in my opinion, that
it would be a place of transformation. yet
that cannot be prescribed/proscribed, though
architecture which tends towards directions
sketched above would at least aim to do so,
not like the current mess which has no aim
to do anything other than occupy the site,
navigate it, and move on or never move on.
images are difficult because people judge
the ideas on what they see, and if it is
not of an aesthetic they appreciate it is
devalued. i stopped drawing years ago as
a result of the illiteracy of people to be
able to appreciate the ideas in drawings,
especially architectural, i rarely draw my
architectural ideas though have planned to
restart my life in architecture in the next
years as it is what i love to do and it is
something i am going to do even if there is
no place yet for the ideas. and this is the
type of thinking that is left out of the
schools of thought today, archaeological-
modern, etc. it breaks the categories of
legitimation, challenges 'the masters',
and frankly, it is a 'difficult whole' as
Robert Venturi stated several decades ago.
if infrastructuralists architects were
able to work on the layers of landscape,
urban design, transit, programming, with
basic concepts and a set of elements to
work with, a new site plan would be able
to generically present these ideas in a
more expert fashion, yet with a memorial
in place, from which to design the larger
site plan in relation to the public goals
yet with the help of private developers
who would be able to share their art,
their ideals, by making this place not
like any other, and giving something back
to the city that gives so much to everyone.
it is literally an artwork, at the level
and scale of a city, an entire composition
which mixes retail, memorial, commercial,
office space, transportation, housing, etc.
(schools, museums, performance space, park).
i am going to work on the drawing as they
can visualize this a little better than i
can in writing. there are paintings of the
"architecture of the french enlightenment"
which are archaeological, they have this
aspect of scale of the city, of variance,
where the parts can also become the whole,
and it is in this same way that a dynamic
of park to 1776' skyscrapers could find a
way of mediation, through scale, through
volume (there is no volumetric planning
at all in the WTC memorial site, except
a one-off below ground). i cannot find
the references for the paintings online
yet they are similar to boullee in a way.
in any case, i was going to write a formal
essay but maybe this is what i needed to
write instead. and the images will try to
sketch what the general idea is, with the
only specificity at the two footprints,
how they are dealt with, and having an
elevated park which ties the surrounding
buildings into the site using bridges,
spanish-stairs, etc. (details which are
architectural projects in themselves, as
with large scale sculptures). to me the
idea is summed up in the atmosphere of
such a place: that persons from around
the world would come to experience this
place, an american acropolis of sorts,
and there is no privileged perspective,
no one iconic view. instead it is the
total experience, which differs every-
day, every time one is there. it is a
place that landscape painters would
come to paint the environment, and of
photographers, sculptors, musicians,
playwrights, and others would perform,
with due respect to its special place.
as it evolves, it would become not an-
other Rockefeller Plaza, or to compete
as a money-shot as Times Square does
for television and movies-- this place
would dwarf these and become, by default,
the premier outdoor civic and cultural
space of NYC, in its grandeur on par
with Central Park, the point of an
explanation mark on the island itself.
it would be a host of celebrations, of
ceremony, of remembrance, of renewal.
of what is great, good, and most vital.
it will return the community's spirit by
identifying it in one place, that all are
a part of, and which serves every person.
it is not abstract, it is reality itself.
persons in some future would not go to
mourn, every visit, but would meet at
the WTC Memorial Park (which would have
to have an easier NYC moniker eventually,
such as WTC Park, etc.) and have lunch
in one of its tiered buildings, and then
go down the ramp to catch a ferry and go
to the statue of liberty from this central
hub. it could be a destination and also a
starting point onto other journeys, like
a grand central station, a park outside,
a hundred times larger, a city building.
looking out, looking in, like a mountain
and valley, the mountain is made of the
buildings which rise around the park,
switch-backs, trails, pathways, groves,
water, terraces, perspectives, views...
with professional models and people who
can add to this imagination, a fully-
developed master plan could be shown that
brings together needed elements into a
robust and imaginative planning which is
doing more than obsessing over footprints
and numerology. that is, architecture whose
focus is architecture and ideas and opening
up what these are capable of, not controlling
them as a client and keeping the job at any
cost, even if it destroys the architecture.
if Mr. Libeskind were to surrender to this
view, and put his little remaining power into
such a master plan, he could have a place if
such a development were to make headway. as
his early thinking was interesting and very
conducive to this approach but he did not
bring people into the process. it would be
a powerful statement if he were to publicly
recognize the need to make a change, and to
save face, and supporting this alternative
master plan in the name of the greater good.
he could do much to reprioritize, and things
could be reframed if he would only do what
is right and join citizen architects, leave
his celebrity to some other day, and work
on innovative, imagination, creative ways
of making what is necessary now possible.
until then Mr. Libeskind and his "master plan"
will remain the architectural enemy, and will
offer excellent counterpoint to what is not
happening on the site, in terms of architecture,
culture, ideas, philosophy, memorial, etc.
boullée - scale
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89tienne-Louis_Boull%C3%A9e
http://expositions.bnf.fr/boullee/
brian thomas carroll: research-design-development
architecture, education, electromagnetism
http://www.mnartists.org/brian_carroll
http://www.electronetwork.org/bc/