Construction begins tomorrow on replacement for Twin Towers.

[Perinquus]

Well, they're laying a 20 ton block of granite tomorrow to mark the official beginning of construction of the new Freedom Tower, which will occupy the site of the destroyed World Trade Center. I have to say, I think the design they picked is simply awful.



Why build a 1776 foot high tower, and use only the bottom two thirds? Yes, I know no one wants to work up on the 110th floor after 9/11, but if that was really an insuperable problem when it came to selling office space inside the building, couldn't they have designed a building that went up to say, 70 stories of office space, then featured something like a large spire with a big observation deck at the top, looking something like the Seattle Space Needle, or the CN tower in Toronto? That would certainly be better looking than what they came up with. The building design is such that after it is completed, it will always look like it was left unfinished, betraying a lack of will to get the job done. That trellis atop the structure looks like construction scaffolding.

Another problem I have with this is that, as one blogger wrote, it seems too overt a nod to the Al Quaeda. It looks too much like the trellis outlines the building we would have built if only it weren't for the terrorists. Now we're too afraid to make a whole building that high, so we settle for this instead. So chalk up a victory for the terrorist fanatics. Ugh!

[Wicked Pilot]

I don't suppose they're leaving out the underground parking garage too, seeing how terrorist attacked that also.

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

I want the new towers exactly like the old ones, just twice as big. I also like this design too.

[darthdavid]

Yeah. Flip the world the bird. It exlemplifies NYC perefectly.

[Sea Skimmer]

Now we're too afraid to make a whole building that high, so we settle for this instead. So chalk up a victory for the terrorist fanatics. Ugh!

Yes, I'm sure that's why and not the fact that it would cost hundreds of millions if not billions more to build a world record tall building with useabul space the whole way up.

[Master of Ossus]

I still think we should have rebuilt the original towers as they once were, with the fountain replaced by a memorial. I think that duplicates of the original building would need no further comment, and would speak for themselves.

[Ma Deuce]

I want the new towers exactly like the old ones, just twice as big. I also like this design too.

But if you look at the real design from the right angle, it does indeed look like an upstretched arm and hand flipping you the birdie.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Now we're too afraid to make a whole building that high, so we settle for this instead. So chalk up a victory for the terrorist fanatics. Ugh!

Yes, I'm sure that's why and not the fact that it would cost hundreds of millions if not billions more to build a world record tall building with useabul space the whole way up.

Which begs the question of why even waste cash on such a useless addition in order to satisfy US architectural penis envy anyway? It serves no purpose and looks stupid, but then the whole design sucks to me.

The old towers had something to them even if they did seem like the typical bland, concrete needles that exemplify Western capitalism.

[salm]

I still think we should have rebuilt the original towers as they once were, with the fountain replaced by a memorial. I think that duplicates of the original building would need no further comment, and would speak for themselves.

imo that would be like denying the catastrophe because it would look like it never happened. fact is that it did happen and there´s no better way to remind people of it than building a totally different building.

imagine seeing an old image of new york with the old towers. if the new one looks the same you won´t think anything about it. if the sight is a totally different one everybody will think of 9/11.

[Howedar]

imo that would be like denying the catastrophe because it would look like it never happened. fact is that it did happen and there´s no better way to remind people of it than building a totally different building.

That's the idea. You wanna blow up our buildings and kill thousands of people? It'll piss us off and we'll go blow up your whole fucking country. Then we'll build them back exactly the same. You've changed nothing.

imagine seeing an old image of new york with the old towers. if the new one looks the same you won´t think anything about it. if the sight is a totally different one everybody will think of 9/11.

Why is that desirable?

[Perinquus]

Now we're too afraid to make a whole building that high, so we settle for this instead. So chalk up a victory for the terrorist fanatics. Ugh!

Yes, I'm sure that's why and not the fact that it would cost hundreds of millions if not billions more to build a world record tall building with useabul space the whole way up.

I repeat:

...if that was really an insuperable problem when it came to selling office space inside the building, couldn't they have designed a building that went up to say, 70 stories of office space, then featured something like a large spire with a big observation deck at the top, looking something like the Seattle Space Needle, or the CN tower in Toronto? That would certainly be better looking than what they came up with.

Whether the reasons are economic or not (and all of you've indicated i that it would cost more - no fucking shit - not whether or not they could ever recoup that investment), the design they settled on, with all this unusable space outlined, is likely to give people a certain impression. What that scaffolding looks like is an outline of the building that we should have built, and would have built if it weren't for the terrorists. They could have come up with another design that didn't put office space any higher than the 70th floor, but didn't look like a job left unfinished.

[salm]

That's the idea. You wanna blow up our buildings and kill thousands of people? It'll piss us off and we'll go blow up your whole fucking country. Then we'll build them back exactly the same. You've changed nothing.

blowing up their country won´t bring back the dead. neither will rebuilding the same house. YOU might be able to pretend that it never happened but not 3000 dead people nor their families.

better build up a new one, better one, cooler one which at the same time honors the dead and is a memorial at the same time.

MOO suggested a small memorial model instead of the fountain. fuck that tiny little memorial thingy and consider the entire building one HUGE memorial.

imagine seeing an old image of new york with the old towers. if the new one looks the same you won´t think anything about it. if the sight is a totally different one everybody will think of 9/11.

Why is that desirable?

because you want peopele to remember stuff like the destruction of the wtc. it´s quite similar to the reason why you put up grave stones or, memorials for fallen soldiers and stuff like that.
if you act as if it´s never happened you basicly take a piss on the dead folks because you apparantly don´t consider them important enough to be remembered.

[Howedar]

blowing up their country won´t bring back the dead. neither will rebuilding the same house. YOU might be able to pretend that it never happened but not 3000 dead people nor their families.

Holy shit, you should go on Jeopardy or something, what with that incredible intellect of yours.

better build up a new one, better one, cooler one which at the same time honors the dead and is a memorial at the same time.

MOO suggested a small memorial model instead of the fountain. fuck that tiny little memorial thingy and consider the entire building one HUGE memorial.

Why the fuck should we do that?

because you want peopele to remember stuff like the destruction of the wtc. it´s quite similar to the reason why you put up grave stones or, memorials for fallen soldiers and stuff like that.
if you act as if it´s never happened you basicly take a piss on the dead folks because you apparantly don´t consider them important enough to be remembered.

Jesus Christ you're an idiot. Just because you don't fixate on something every minute of every day doesn't mean you don't remember it. Did they turn Pearl Harbor into a giant memorial after the attack? No, they went back and continued to use it as a naval base. Do people not remember Pearl Harbor? Were those who died there considered "not important" enough to be remembered?

[Sarevok]

The new tower design does not look good. Personaly I would have preferred to see the WTC towers rebuilt. It would have sent a powerful message throughout the world. The new tower design as it is does not seem to fit in well with the New York skyline.

[Mayabird]

It seems like a design made by a committee to me. Everybody has their little parts thrown in and there's something to make everybody happy. When each little bit is thrown in and everyone is equally unhappy with the design, the committee declares success.

[kojikun]

That's actually what happened, maya. The architect proposed a design, and a shitload of modifications were made to satisfy a bunch of people. It doesn't look hardly anything like the original design, which called for a more distinct, single scaffolded spire to house buttloads of plants. An interesting idea, to have a miniature greenhouse at 1500 feet.

[Dahak]

imo that would be like denying the catastrophe because it would look like it never happened. fact is that it did happen and there´s no better way to remind people of it than building a totally different building.

That's the idea. You wanna blow up our buildings and kill thousands of people? It'll piss us off and we'll go blow up your whole fucking country. Then we'll build them back exactly the same. You've changed nothing.

And that's why you want to rebuild an ugly building?
At least the new tower looks interesting...

[The Kernel]

What an ugly piece of shit. They should have gone with the giant Tessla-Coil-of-Doom concept.

[Rye]

That is really quite ugly, a better design would've been the evil temple from black and white, to remind everyone America is an angry vengeful god.

[RedImperator]

I don't see the purpose in repeating the same mistakes they made the first time by rebuilding the 1 and 2 World Trade Center exactly the way they were. One of the things I like very much about this design is that they're reconnecting the street grid through the site, integrating the new WTC into the neightborhood rather than treating it like a fortress dropped in the middle of it. That would be impossible if the site was rebuilt exactly as it was before.

Further, the old towers paid no deference to the old Lower Manhattan skyline. As befits the arrogance of modernist design, they ignored 100 years of architectural history and the overall balance of the Manhattan skyline to build two giant crackerboxes along the Hudson. The World Financial Center softened their impact somewhat, but the old towers made it clear the men who designed and built them wanted no part of the old, messy, natural New York. They were David Rockefeller's vision of a clean, designed, sterile future that nobody wanted and nobody asked for, and thirty years later we're spending billions of dollars all over the country to clean up his mistakes and the mistakes of people who thought like him.

All that being said, the new design is fugly. I like that they've restored the street grid and I like that the smaller towers will pull the central one into the existing skyline, but Jesus on a pony, am I tired of buildings that look like science experiment crystals.

[Iceberg]

Minneapolis was the same way. 30 years ago, the IDS Center became a giant glass carbunkle in the center of downtown which fortunately unlike the World Trade Center at least has the advantage of being visually interesting (the jagged stepbacks in the side of the building turn what would otherwise have been a giant glass box into a quasi-octagon shape).

30 years later, it doesn't look so out of place - downtown Minneapolis builds now in a naturalistic way around the three-building troika of the IDS Center (1970s), Wells Fargo Center (1980s) and 225 South Sixth (1990s). But in the 70s, it was a giant fugly glass box in the center of downtown.

New York never had that option, because the World Trade Center was simply so huge that building up around it once completed proved impossible.

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

MOO suggested a small memorial model instead of the fountain. fuck that tiny little memorial thingy and consider the entire building one HUGE memorial.

They said they wouldn't do that, because it would be economically inefficient to misuse prime relestate in downtown NY.

[kojikun]

I found a very nice rendering of the tower. Ugly.

[Mayabird]

Now on top of being something a committee made, it looks broken, like an earthquake twisted it up badly. The new little buildings around it make me think of shards of broken glass. Fun.

[Raxmei]

That hanging gardens idea sounds interesting. The idea of having to maintain so many plants and their associated plumbing at that height for no practical purpose doesn't seem all that appealing, though.

Are those angles there for any reason other than aesthetics?