I opened this thread thinking there’d been a typo and I’d see a “gaudy” design… There wasn’t a typo, but I wasn’t much disappointed. It does look like a vibrator. I think they should just build a building. Not a memorial, not an “inspiration to New York”, not a “symbol in the fight against terrorism”, but a building. Add a park, add a statue, but stop TRYING to make something symbolic. We all know what happened, we don’t need a 2000 foot building slamming it in our faces 24/7 for however many years the next one will stand. We don’t have giant reminders of WWI or WWII or anything like that. We have quiet, respectful, peaceful memorials which honour the lives of those lost and of those who worked hard to make things better. We respect what happened, but we don’t force it into each others faces, and I think that this is no different. This is going to be an office building - do people need to go to work expecting to have to “live up” to somesort of standard because this is the “New WTC” ? Build a building, and dedicate a park to those who were lost. Let them rest in peace, rather than turning their names into a big “fuck you terrorists - look we can build something big!”
I have a sticker on my binder for school which reads “I’m angry, but I’m not stupid. I don’t spread hatred”. Maybe this should be the inspiration for a “new WTC”.
I say build it, and install a massive fountain at the top.
Of course, the fountain would contain milk, and it could cascade into a pool on the ground. At the bottom of the pool, a mosaic tile portrait of Osama Bin Laden’s mug.
None of my business, but when I was visiting a friend in Germany we came up with the perfect design idea - a pair of the world’s biggest speakers, for Flea and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, with a bridge in between the two speakers right up at the top for the band to stand on. They could have the concert for Europe without leaving the country! (Got the idea when I made a comment about Flea using power lines as a bass on the video for “Otherside”)
Thank the lord someone has their head on straight. All of these “memorial” projects are tacky as hell looking. They’re a bunch of really really great buildings formetopoopon.
I agree, frankly I’m quite sick of hearing about the attack and I suspect the victims are too. Think about it, when something bad happens to you do you want to be reminded of it every day for then next few years or possibly forever?
In any case yep I think it looks like a dildo too.
I always liked Frank Lloyd Wright’s designs myself.
Maybe Gieger if we want something twisted…
Sigh. We should be so lucky. To hear many politicians and media types, the only people whose opinions really matter are the families of the victims, which I think is appalling. I’ve written it elsewhere here, but I really want to shake some of these people and tell them, “Yes, what happened to you was tragic. We will memorialize it in some fashion. That does not mean that your wishes trump the broader community’s. And the brute reality is that the mere fact of someone’s death on a particular spot does not somehow make that spot ‘sacred.’”
At the risk of being pitted, what comes to my mind is Tori Amos’s “Professional Widow,” multiplied by the hundreds. We have so successfully walled death off from life that when it intrudes, many people seem to lack the most basic ability to emerge from their grief. Grief should be self-indulgent - briefly. And then it is our duty to live.
Well, it looks futuristic enough (And about damn time…I mean, it’s the year 2003 for god’s sake! I know we’re not going to see any Moller-400’s flying 'bout anytime soon, so we should be building SOMETHING that looks like it belongs in a matte painting by now.) but personally, I’d make it bigger, at LEAST as tall as the old towers. Preferably tallest building in the world.
You’ve made some good points here, but I think you misrepresented the point of view of the families. It’s not just that their loved ones died there…it’s that several thousand of their loved ones are still “there”, and will always be there.
If society now considers the ethics of building on ancient native American burial grounds, this is a similar consideration.
I don’t feel a need to see the world’s tallest building standing down there, but I’d like something that you can see when you are elsewhere in Manhattan. The skyline is empty without the towers.
This is a very nice design, much nicer looking than the WTC was.
[politically incorrect sentiment]That isn’t saying much. The only thing that made the towers interesting was that they were a pair and one tower had a cool antenna. Aside from that they were just more examples of virtually featureless rectangular soda-cracker boxes stood on end, kind of like the Trump tower on 47th.[/politically incorrect sentiment]
Oxy Moron? I knew I liked ya when I shared my curly fries with you a few years ago. I got pretty deep into what happened down there, and yet I absolutely agree with you.
Time heals. What a deeply damaging thing to go through, but time heals. If every spot where a New Yorker died is a memorial, then man, we’d all better strap on our flying belts.
Yes, it’s a grave. I was aware of that the day it happened, and the next day- when I trudged through the snowdrifts of family photos, office papers, pulverized wallboard/cement/humans on my way to do my EMT work there. Aware that it wasn’t just snowdrifts of stuff. It was people.
I left my shoes on the parking lot ground before I got into my car to drive home. Sickeningly aware of what I had walked through, my shoes had become something of a nightmare to me.
It is a uniquely awful grave, and I agree that something appropriate belongs there. This building might very well serve the purpose.
On an aesthetic level, I adore it, it makes my eye happy. Personally, I don’t believe there is anything to be gained by " building a bigger one to show them that WE won ! ". It’s false bravado. The rebuilding is taking place, one aggrieved mind at a time. As Oxy pointed out, NOT just the families of the deceased, but everyone who is a New Yorker who has to deal with the physical reality of that space.
I wish they would make a park there. The entire site. You want offices? Build em underground. Leave the open air there, to soothe the pained hearts and minds left behind.
Honestly - and here’s politically incorrect for ya! - I’m not that much more sympathetic about burial grounds, either, but the political context is more justifiable. In the case of Native Americans (and, here in New York, African American’s), you take these steps because you know, in your heart of hearts, that your ancestors treated their ancestors badly.
And in any case, I would say that the WTC site is not a burial ground. It’s a war zone, and in war zones some human remains are always unrecoverable. Think of the infernos in Tokyo and Hiroshima, Dresden and Hamburg. If you memorialized every place where a life was snuffed out, obliterating even its ashes - well, most of many cities would be empty.
We are not used to this, here in America. We have had the luxury of segregating death away, prettifying it, ignoring it. We no longer can. We must live in its midst.
I think the teams that produced each of the schemes submitted so far have had an impossible task. The original architects worked to the brief they were given; all the results were unpopular so the brief was scrapped. The second batch of designs addressed the new brief; none of them is universally popular so the revised brief is to be ignored too. The brief cannot satisfy public opinion because there is no one opinion. That’s usually the case with public architecture, and the more sensitive the project the worse the arguments get.
FWIW, my prediction is that the Gaudi building will not be built because it will be prohibitively expensive, will contain only a fraction of the lettable space required by the owners of the site and because it will involve craft skills that are not available or are unaffordable.
The site will remain empty for decades, punctuated regularly by complaints that nothing has been built yet and more complaints about all the new proposals. The longer the site remains empty the more likely it is that a soulless but profitable building is chosen and generally condemned as being the wrong choice.
Okay, I think I need to clear something up here. If you really know Gaudi, there is no way you will think that that rocketship/dildo is what he intended when he designed this masterpiece. This seems like an interpretation of Gaudi’s design. Gaudi designed organic Architecture and the colored computer rendering is not very organic.
Also, keep in mind, if you have visited Sangrada Familia, and you don’t like what you see. The portion of the church that is still under construction is not his design. He designed the towers, which are VERY similar to this design. The intricate detail is what I would expect from Gaudi, not that rocket ship.
I am all for this design, properly done: the way Gaudi intended, or at least the way the Church of the Sangrada Familia is being treated. I think this design has more potential for greatness than any other design. And being a Gaudi design is just the icing on the cake. He is my favorite Architect.
Here are some more web pages that display better pictures of the Grand Hotel.
Well, if you want my opinion (and who does?) I too would just build a building. That should be symbol enough, in and of itself. Actually, I’d like two towers again. Oh, I’d make them more modern and distinctive - round or oval, something simply like that - but going out of the way to create some bizarre, new, memorial design is just not appealing to me. And even though I love Gaudi, my first thought on seeing that… thing was that it looked like a dildo or a rocketship. Ewww.
