{"id":302,"date":"2003-12-21T00:31:20","date_gmt":"2003-12-21T07:31:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stefangeens.com\/?p=302"},"modified":"2003-12-21T00:31:20","modified_gmt":"2003-12-21T07:31:20","slug":"freedom-tower","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/2003\/12\/freedom-tower\/","title":{"rendered":"Freedom Tower"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Freedom Tower<\/span><\/span>First, read Felix’s detailed tour<\/a> of Freedom Tower, unveiled Friday. He was my eyes and ears for this post. What follows is my take:<\/p>\n

I’m cautiously pessimistic about this structure. It brought a whole range of associations to the fore, none of them really positive:<\/p>\n

It could look meek:<\/span> I perfectly understand that nobody wants to work on the 110th floor anymore. 9\/11 changed the long-term future of urban landscapes by tragically demonstrating that huge skyscrapers collect too many eggs in one basket and thus make too tempting a target.<\/p>\n

One solution is not to build more 110 story skyscrapers. It’s an honest response to changed conditions. But building a 110 story skyscraper and then only using the bottom two thirds of it is too tangible a nod to Al Qaeda. It begins to sound like a building with a chip on its shoulders, with the trellis outlining up to where we would have built if only it weren’t for the terrorists, who, in other words, have already won.<\/p>\n

It could look unfinished:<\/span> The trelliswork at the top looks suspiciously like scaffolding. What’s going to keep it from looking perenially unfinished? Buildings permanently left unfinished — like the Antwerp Cathedral<\/a> — betray a certain lack of will to get the job done.<\/p>\n

It shows no unity of purpose:<\/span> Instead, it looks like design by committee, or by negotiation (not surprising, as that’s what it was), along the lines of “you can have your trellis if I can have my spire.” Now we have both, and the whole is less than the sum of its parts\"think.jpg\"
Think’s World Cultural Center<\/span><\/span>.<\/p>\n

About that spire:<\/span> When a spire emerges as an inescapable conclusion derived from the internal logic of a building’s architecture, as with the Chrysler building, it makes for the most satisfying works ever. But if it just sticks out of the ground, as with the Dublin Spire<\/a>, its purpose mystifies. The Freedom Tower’s spire, placed as it is now, tends to the latter, baffling kind. Libeskind original winning design<\/a> had a much stronger logic for its spike.<\/p>\n

I find myself wishing we could build something clearly better, more playful and optimistic, and I think back to the finalist that lost out to Libeskind, Think’s World Cultural Center (portrayed left). The twin towers pay homage to the World Trade Center but improve on its esthetics, and the entirety of the structure is made up of audacious architectural flourishes never seen before. But above all, the lattice work serves a purpose, as does the height. Dangling an opera house or similar cultural landmark 500 meters up in the air is an inspired move, because while we might not want to be there from 9 to 5 Monday to Friday, we will all gladly play hero for a few hours at a time. And it’s a much better way of telling the terrorists that we have already won.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Freedom TowerFirst, read Felix’s detailed tour of Freedom Tower, unveiled Friday. He was my eyes and ears for this post. What follows is my take: I’m cautiously pessimistic about this structure. It brought a whole range of associations to the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-new-york"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7eNhC-4S","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}