Posted on 09/18/2006 10:06:01 AM PDT by SirLinksalot
Twin towers no loss to architecture, says critic
Richard Brooks, Arts Editor
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THE World Trade Center was an “ugly box” whose loss did no architectural damage to New York, one of the world’s most outspoken art critics has said.
“It was a large, scaleless lump, which completely dominated that end of Manhattan,” said Robert Hughes, best known in Britain for The Shock of the New, his 1980s BBC television series and book. “It only became iconic when it was knocked over by a bunch of Arabs.”
Hughes, an Australian who has lived in New York for many years, was appalled by the attacks, but he also expressed relief that Osama Bin Laden’s terrorists did not fly their planes into towers of greater aesthetic merit.
“It would have been terrible if those Al-Qaeda guys had knocked down either the Chrysler Building or the Rockefeller Center,” said Hughes last week. “These two buildings are the architectural gems of New York. Suppose a bunch of turbaned terrorists had tried to do that?”
Hughes, who saw the destruction of the north tower from his apartment on the morning of September 11, 2001, added that “nobody praised the design when the World Trade Center was put up”. The twin towers were built between 1966 and 1972.
His comments follow the recent unveiling of designs for new tower blocks to replace the World Trade Center. They include towers by Lords Foster and Rogers, the renowned British architects.
The critic, who nearly died in a car crash in 1999, expressed his annoyance at what he called the “endless dickering” over what to erect at ground zero and how to commemorate 9/11.
“This is in part because we face here in New York a poverty of ideas for commemorative art and architecture,” he said. “The whole thing has also been colonised by power politics and real estate people.”
Hughes added that New York was now “too monumentconscious. I don’t think we need monuments for 9/11, though you can’t say that to the relatives of those who died. What I’d prefer is for an empty space to be left or perhaps some smaller memorial like the wall in Washington with the names of those killed in Vietnam”.
Hughes, whose memoirs, Things I Didn’t Know, are published at the end of this month, said he had little time for the whole idea of creating monumental-scale buildings.
“The 1990s Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris is just one example. It’s horrible, as were all those other grand projects put up by [President François] Mitterrand,” he said.
Despite his lack of regret at the loss of the twin towers, Hughes will never forget the day itself. After seeing the north tower struck by a hijacked airliner, he went down onto the street.
“I then saw the plane hit the south tower. I thought, ‘Christ, I’m going to die.’ It had been such a beautiful, clear day, and then I saw these white and dark things falling from the sky. The white things turned out to be documents and bits of paper, and the dark things were people.”
Hughes is in no rush to make peace with his Australian critics, who seem to regard him as a treacherous exile. “When Australia was commemorating its bicentenary, I suggested a memorial with the names of the first convicts on it,” he said. “That hardly went down well.”
Sounds like Mr. Hughes needs some xanax.
Having said that, they are martyred now, so I do think of them as beautiful these days.
I'll be honest, when they were first built I thouht they were ugly.
They were ugly, but their memory is beyond beautiful.
Ugly box?
I would give anything to have those two boxes back and everyone in them!
And they would be more beautiful then any building I have ever seen if that could only be true.
"My dear chap, you must understand -- I don't care about people. People are, oh, how shall I put it? Crass, I suppose comes close. But Art ... ! Art, my friend, is what matters!"
More puny-ass memorial ideas to show we've capitulated to not having massive towers displaying our commercial dominance to the world.
OK Folks,
Now that I find out that a lot of people didn't like the original twin towers in the first place, any thoughts about the new Freedom Tower Design that will be taking their place ?
When Mr Hughes assumes room temperature, I'll say, "Robert Hughes no loss to humanity."
Hughes added that New York was now “too monumentconscious. I don’t think we need monuments for 9/11, though you can’t say that to the relatives of those who died. What I’d prefer is for an empty space to be left or perhaps some smaller memorial like the wall in Washington with the names of those killed in Vietnam”.
From an architecture viewpoint, they were ugly.
Taken in isolation, the Twin Towers may seem Spartan, but their beauty was in how it looked in contrast with the rest of the skyline.
Visually speaking, he is right IMO.
But they were pretty awesome for their height and the ability to withstand hard winds and etc... Just not two airplanes full of jet fuel.
I grew up looking at the skyline. Nobody I knew ever liked them, at least not until 9/11.
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