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Great Hall, THINK Design: Shigeru Ban, Frederic Schwartz, Ken Smith, Rafael Vinoly; Contributors: William Morrish, David Rockwell, Janet Marie Smith; Engineers: Arup, Buro Happold, Jorge Schlaich |
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Finally, the proposal that best integrates with the character and scale of downtown and avoids intimidating monoliths or a minimal 70s esthetic is that offered by Peterson / Littenberg. First off, based on the model this is the one design that does not appear to employ massive amounts of |
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Peterson/Littenberg Architecture and Urban Design |
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modernistic glass. The materials are far more complementary to the rest of what already exists. Secondly, a couple of towers are incorporated but they don�t dominate. The acknowledgement of the WTC is refreshingly understated and scaled |
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down to more human terms. The third thing is that Peterson / Littenberg integrate their twin towers seamlessly into the rest of the sight. Overall it is the most conservative and traditional looking proposal. And this is precisely why its fits like a glove into this most conservative and traditional part of the city. Way back when this is what the original WTC should have been built like. Peterson / Littenberg also had the simplest, least flashy; i.e., straightforward, architectural model and presentation - yet another reason to like them. |
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So, what have we learned? The Monolithic archi- tects don�t appear to get it - it�s the loss of the people not the towers that constitute the tragedy. The Minimalists, as well as the Monoliths, also miss the mark in offering an esthetic that is completely out of step with the location, not to mention the times. Another thing is the extent to which several of these proposals are overtly tied to their creators. The problem is akin to an exhibition catalog whose graphic design elements overwhelm the very thing it was produced to document. In other words many of these designs implicitly glorify the architects rather then truly acknowledge the tragedy and address the future needs of the downtown neighborhoods. The best of these designs, with the exception of THINK�s World Cultural Center is in the �Other� category, which overall are more original and concerned with their surroundings. |
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Esthetics aside, there are practical questions that raise issues for most of the proposals. For instance, who will lease all this commercial space with so much vacant real estate already available downtown? And who would realistically occupy the higher floors of the tallest buildings? The original complex was a hard enough sell on both counts for better than the first half of its life. Given the economy, but especially the horror of September 11th, the idea seems impossible. |
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As of this writing the complete public reaction has not been tallied; though so far, it does not appear to be running favorably). It remains to be seen to what extent the LMDC will really listen to the public in making their decision. |
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GalleryViews Directory |
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