Final Design Chosen for WTC site

AP | 2/27/03 | Sara Kugler

[R_Kangel]

Hey!!

I'm no expert on architectural design, but wouldn't the extreme slanted angle of the building's roofs create massive torrents of cascading waterfalls during rainstorms as well as bone crushing avalanches of snow and icicles during the winter?

Again I'm no expert but this design could prove to be quite disasterous to the public below!

[finnman69]

I'm no expert on architectural design, but wouldn't the extreme slanted angle of the building's roofs create massive torrents of cascading waterfalls during rainstorms as well as bone crushing avalanches of snow and icicles during the winter? Again I'm no expert but this design could prove to be quite disasterous to the public below! To answer you, yes and yes.

These are all details to work out, but angular buildings with sloped surfaces are harder to detail, and can collect more ice and snow. Rain is less of an issue.

Another tricky detail common to all very tall buildings is how do you clean the windows.

[finnman69]

Like I said, they are already changing the design. Many more changes shall come quickly. Hopefully it will become better looking. This rendering is already an improvement.

A NEWER LOOK FOR NEW WTC

By WILLIAM NEUMAN

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February 28, 2003 -- The scarred foundation of the World Trade Center shielded behind glass, a memorial pit 30 feet below street level, and a spindly spire with a 110th-floor restaurant - those are among the new twists in a rejiggered plan unveiled yesterday by winning Ground Zero architect Daniel Libeskind.

But even with the changes to his original design, many questions remain about the future of the scheme - including which agency will hire Libeskind, who was praised yesterday by Mayor Bloomberg and Gov. Pataki at a press conference officially announcing his selection.

Among the changes from his original proposal:

* The edges of the jagged office buildings have been softened.

* The memorial space - now 30 feet below street level in the Ground Zero pit, instead of sitting 70 feet deep at bedrock - is shown covered with grass, instead of starkly gray.

* The 1,776-foot-tall spire - the world's tallest - would contain a restaurant on the 110th floor, replacing the destroyed Windows of the World.

One of the elements that is likely to raise eyebrows is the design's preoccupation with the decaying concrete wall of the WTC basement. This wall, never a visible part of the Twin Towers, was hidden for months after the 9/11 attacks until excavators cleared the debris.

But Libeskind wants to put the wall on display as symbol of the durability of American democracy.

In fact, Libeskind wants to encase it behind viewing glass in a climate-controlled space.

Who pays Libeskind could ultimately determine what gets done downtown - depending on whether it's the Port Authority, which owns the trade-center site, or the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., which has a more advisory role.

"This all has to be ironed out," said PA Executive Director Joe Seymour.

"Daniel will have to have input on the memorial competition, and we want to have Daniel's input on designing [the Ground Zero rail terminal] . . . This is a vision. Obviously, everyone hopes the majority of it will be upheld."

Trade-center leaseholder Larry Silverstein criticized an earlier version of the plan, but he praised it yesterday.

"He says the Libeskind plan is exactly what was required and is a perfect site plan," said Silverstein's spokesman, Howard Rubenstein.

Libeskind pleased Silverstein by increasing the office space on the site to cover all 10 million square feet lost on 9/11.

[equus]

Perhaps you are right about the "pit", but we never can tell until we walk into something and feel it viscerally, as with Maya Lin.

I don't know what to say because I adore Frank Gehry although I worry he is overdoing his style, I'd like him to stop now or his buildings will start to become less precious. I think the Guggenheim Bilbao is total genius, and as you know, it put that town on the map, made it into a tourist attraction. Think how many local lives were improved through one building. The return on the cost is incalculable, and goes down through generations.

You may be right about the costs of the hanging gardens. I know nothing about this kind of thing, I just react aesthetically. The new space museum at the Museum of Natural History for exampe was probably horribly expensive but it is so inspiring, and it makes that one of the great museums of the world if it wasn't already. And that's what NY is about.

And something needs to be done about NY. I am thinking of leaving it myself. It has such a pall over it. A friend came in from Vancouver, and we went shopping etc. She hasn't been here in a while, she used to love NY. Well, in Barney's, I was stopped from taking pics of her w/ my digital camera, the same in the Radio & Television building lobby, then we saw garage attendants with radioactive/bomb sensors going over every single car including under the cars, that were waiting to park, and NYers don't even walk like they once did. This used to be like "roadrunner" city, everyone was on speed, rushing to get where they had to be or wanted to be, full of crazy energy. Now there is just a resignation and an emptiness. Something needs to be done and I think this is an attempt to do it. Whether it helps, who knows. NYers are in shock from going from the world meccas, the multicultural center of existence, to trying to adjust to the fact that they may be forever and ever the prime target of terrorism. It just doesn't work--you can't have both in one. As my friend commented, there has to be a price adjustment. The prices for meals are still ridiculous, and the city feels too dangerous and too depressed to make a case for spending that kind of $.

[finnman69]

The difference betwwen the Maya Lin ground plane articulation and the scale of the pit is huge, you can't compare them. Also, the Maya Lin Vietnam memorial (which I like) is in the Mall, not in the middle of a dense street grid.

I like some of Frank Gehry's buildings, but the novelty has worn off, and they all start to be alike. The Bilbao Guggenheim is a fantastic building, but his proposal for the NYC Guggenhem (which thankfully has been killed) was the same building transplanted to NYC where it looked very out of place.

[equus]

Yes, you are right. He should change his style periodically like Picasso did (Gehry, I mean).

I guess you just can't know until it happens. And by then I'll probably have left NYC! I've about had it.