Peeve Farm

g r o t t o 1 1

Peeve Farm
Breeding peeves for show, not just to keep as pets

  Blog \Blôg\, n. [Jrg, fr. Jrg. "Web-log".
     See {Blogger, BlogSpot, LiveJournal}.]
     A stream-of-consciousness Web journal, containing
     links, commentary, and pointless drivel.

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Thursday, December 19, 2002
10:10 - New WTC Designs http://www.cnn.com	(top)
Okay-- so, various folks have linked to these new WTC designs that have been unveiled. I haven't yet had a chance to register my opinions, but at first blush I'd have to go with the majority and agree that primarily I'm extremely happy that the original blah-fest of proposals were sent summarily back to the drawing board. Clusters of anonymous office buildings isn't any kind of way to mark this set of events in history. Fifty years from now there are going to be thousands and thousands of pilgrims visiting the WTC site, and they're going to want to be able to find the place without a street map. That's the way it should be. So anyway, CNN has a vote on the various designs. They're all appropriately scaled and free-standing, finally; this time they actually seem to aspire to improve upon the site, rather than to just band-aid the gash in the skyline so nobody notices. Some of the designs I find bizarre and gross, but others definitely have the right idea: huge and imposing, but tasteful. #1. Studio Libeskind. Hmm. Four amorphous quartz crystals with a pointy spire reminiscent of Frank Lloyd Wright's Chicago "Mile High Skyscraper" concept? Naaah. We can do better than this. #2. Foster & Partners. I could totally go for this one. It's got that whole glass-and-steel Star Trek look to it, but it's extremely evocative of the original WTC, as well as being much taller. I wonder how it would react to wind, what with the venturi-tube effect betwen the towers, though... #. Meier Eisenman Gwathmey Holl. Looks like a couple of Rice Chex dropped into the middle of Manhattan, or possibly a giant fence erected to keep out intruders. No stylistic integration with... anything, really. Bleah. #4. THINK Team. The idea with the three narrow towers is kinda cool, but I'm less-than-wild about this "World Cultural Center" thing. It looks like a mock-up, like the false fronts on Old West buildings. It looks like the city's saying "We can't put the World Trade Center towers back up, so we'll build a wire-frame model of it so people think the towers are still here." Plus the name "World Cultural Center" sounds like a lame post-modern backlash-against-trade-and-commerce thing-- bets on whether a three-story "9/11 was caused by America's insensitivity to the Palestinian cause and cultural imperialism in oil-rich nations" exhibit is part of the proposal? Oh, and whatever-that-is near the top sorta looks like a plane stuck in the towers, but that's just me. #5. United Architects. Nice thought, nice scale and size, but... from the ground, this thing looks like three or four buildings grew together as a result of bad splint-work, or possibly like several buildings fell against each other and got stuck together. I'll pass. #6. Peterson/Littenberg. I'm not sure what to make of this. The towers look nice, very Empire State Building-- even the concept art looks like "City Beautiful" stuff. But I can't tell where the buildings are supposed to go, from the artwork. I'd like to see a better skyline shot of this one. #7. Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. The hell is this? Arc de Triomphe in a corset? Looks like a bad optical illusion. No thank you. As for the voting, it's surprisingly close-- every design has many thousands of votes. But the front-runner, and this doesn't exactly surprise me, is #2-- perhaps because it bears the most resemblance to the original. Somehow I suspect that if one of the proposals were to build 'em back exactly as before, that one would be raking in the votes. As it is, I'm glad to see that the people have taste as well as nostalgia. This might work out yet.