February 5, 2003

On WTC Site Designs

What I hope doesn't carry through from the plans the LMDC selected from Daniel Libeskind and THINK Team:

  • Needlessly symbolic height (1,776 feet) Why not two 911' high towers? Duh, because.
  • Single high-profile elements that completely draw attention away from the plan and architecture of the rest of the site.

    What I hope does carry through:

  • "The Bathtub" as part of the memorial (Read Edith Iglauer's 1972 New Yorker article about its construction, as discussed here.)
  • Paul Goldberger's called-for "Eiffel Tower for the 21st Century" (as discussed here.)
  • Memorials related/sited to the points of impact, an element of THINK's World Cultural Center which (New Republic architecture critic) Martin Filler attributes to Shigeru Ban.

    What Filler calls such a concept, which I personally favor: "unquestionably the most provocative." [I think he's talking about the latticework as Ban's, not the memorial. I like both.]

    Despite a lot of overwrought reaction, Filler wins the greg.org "smartest critic" award for agreeing with me on so many points: this memorial idea, the 1,776' tower, and (finally!) the Eisenman-as-ruin-as-memorial-instigator analysis.

    architecture | new yorker magazine database | posted by greg at February 5, 2003 1:41 AM