New World Trade Center design is inappropriate...

[Az]

quoting out of context.

[Tattila the Hun]

It's holey ground allready... Just remove the e.


Hey, I know:



It's cheap...

[Agathon]

At least all the designs are a reflection of American foreign policy: flipping the bird to everyone else.

[Adagio]

Originally posted by Guynemer
Am I the only person who thinks that there should be NO new building? Leave the area as is, as holy ground?

I would see a new building as a better "memorial" than some empty land

[Kontiki]

Originally posted by Adagio


I would see a new building as a better "memorial" than some empty land

I agree. IMO, the best thing to do is have a tasteful memorial to those who died or suffered in the tragedy, and a new building(s) to basically say "Screw you. Your attack isn't going to bring us to our knees."

[VetLegion]

What's the saying... ugly buildings, whores and politicians... all get respectable if they last long onough.

[lord of the mark]

I believe it was Ada Louise Huxtable, then Archt critic for the Times, who panned the original WTC, as boring, underdone for the size, etc, etc. And the plaza in the middle was something of a wind tunnel, IIRC, and not the best urban space. Nonetheless we (or at least many of us) came to love the WTC, well before 9/11, as it became part of the fabric of our lives in NY. You get used to things.

[lord of the mark]

'We must not forget how undistinguished the World Trade Center was. "When completed," the authors of the 2000 edition of the AIA Guide to New York City wrote, "these stolid, banal monoliths came to overshadow Lower Manhattan's cluster of filigreed towers, which had previously been the romantic evocation that symbolized the very concept of 'skyline.'"

Ada Louise Huxtable, former architecture critic for The New York Times, described their style as "General Motors Gothic." Her successor, Paul Goldberger, called them "boring, so utterly banal as to be unworthy of the headquarters of a bank in Omaha." Wolf von Eckhardt published an article in Harper's calling the World Trade Center a "fearful instrument of urbicide," and "one of the ugliest buildings in the world." They were monuments to money and power, brutish and ugly, and only in the agony of their final hour did they take on nobility from the valor of those who sought to save the people who worked within their walls.

Until some 40 years ago, the lower west side was an industrial neighborhood. Washington Market, a block-square two-story building at Washington Street between Fulton and Vesey Streets, where 175 merchants dealt in meat, poultry, cheese, butter and garden produce delivered by boat, wagon and truck, dominated the local economy. At Cortlandt St., the huge, faintly seedy Hudson Terminal buildings towered above the terminus of the Hudson Tubes, now the PATH line. Printing plants, warehouses and factories jostled delicatessens, bars, cobblers, hardware stores and barbers. Cortlandt Street had so many electronics retailers that some called it "Radio Row." '


the author neglects to include eggs among the items dealt in by the wholesale merchants of the Washington Market. This is a MAJOR omission.

[Combat Ingrid]

Originally posted by Adagio
The thing that annoys me the most about this (or any tall building actually) is the antenna. Why is it that whenever they build a building they always add a long antenna at the top just so that they can call the building the tallest building in the world
The height of a building should be based on where the top floor is, not where the top of the antenna is

True. According to wikipedia, Taipei 101 is no less than 67 meters (221 ft) taller than Sears Tower.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by ixnay
The new design is about 1000 times better than the crap they had designed before with the ugly latticework tacked on to the top.

[chequita guevara]

There was a Frontline episode, IIRC, about how the company holding the lease for the WTC decided to scrap the design chosen by the design committee, despite making a public agreement to build what the committee chose. In the end, the lease holder got his design.

Man is it ugly.

[Q Classic]

I disliked the original design, but honestly, I think this one's a step backwards.

It's duller, not as visually interesting. The article's right--it's just a friggin' obelisk (obelix is asterix's friend, not a spire), and sure, it's made out of glass and lit from within, but...

It's boring. I mean, the old WTC towers were pretty boring, too, but this isn't really a step up, either.

And I had no idea Albert Speer had architectural nightmares. I thought he had enough trouble with Philly itself...

[Spiffor]

The original design was 1000 times better. At least it looked interesting, and mirorred the Statue of Liberty acceptably. The new one is a borefest, barely less ugly than the old WTC.

[Az]

If you want a statue, go to your ****ing louvre, frenchie. This is a building, and it needs to be functional and impressive. Besides, any architectural borefest will likely let you feel at home, just like in the center of Paris.

[Spiffor]

What's the use of building the US' penis if ti doesn't look impressive?

The US is supposedly about arrogance! Such dullness is a betrayal of American values!