[Aquinasfan]

This story was on the AOL opening page and I couldn't find a link. Hopefully someone else can post pictures.

If this were another site, I'd be happy about the design. I'm sick of rectangular buildings. But the angled buildings look like shards of broken glass, which does not seem appropriate.

[ch.man]

Libeskind, who is based in Berlin

The thought of a german architect winning the design contest is quite interesting... especially theses days!

[BlessedBeGod]

World's Tallest Spire Chosen for WTC Site

[snopercod]

But the angled buildings look like shards of broken glass, which does not seem appropriate.

If it were me, I would have replaced the towers with bigger, taller, safer ones of the same design. That would be in keeping with the American Spirit.

But you've got to admit that these jagged towers and twisted buildings really do look like a bomb went off in the center of them. No one will ever be able to look at them without remembering what happened there.

They look like rubble frozen in time. I wonder if Liebeskind is a Dadaist...

[Momaw Nadon]

[OldFriend]

Lots of incorrect facts in this article. The spire is to be 1776 ft. tall to honor America's independence. The LMDC was founded long before Sept. 11th. There are other errors too, but those two were most obvious.

[libertylover]

I like the look of these towers except for what looks like giant scaffolding (for TV towers?) on the left of the photo.

And BTW, the old towers were an architectual zero.

[Dirk McQuickly]

Shards of glass. Whatever happened to elegance? Perhaps something a little more symphonic would have been appropos.

Of course, the concept of having the spire reach so high makes sense, since no one will insure any office floors above 75 stories in lower Manhattan these days...

It looked better that the unnecessarily haunting, crumpled lattice twin towers it was up against. But for all the great architectural minds in the world, it looked like they were trying WAY too hard to be unique instead of making a more graceful statement.

Just my .02

[firewalk]

.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

He has estimated the cost of building his design at $330 million.

The twin towers were valued at $3,000,000,000 apiece.

I refuse to believe that this structure can be built for 11% of the cost of ONE of the twin towers.

[Dont Tread On Me Eh?]

Not to sh*t on everyone's parade, but how is this spire the tallest one in the world? The CN tower (tall, phallic-looking structure that defines the Toronto skyline) is 1815 feet tall.

[theFIRMbss]

>"Relatives of the nearly 2,800 people who died at ground zero called for memorials with a sense of respect and grace, while business officials and others said the city cannot afford to lose too much office space."

A terror attack
happens, and then is over.
This business mindset

"attacks" constantly.
Every day, the Western world
becomes less human.

Even as we fight
Islam's cultural attacks
on human freedom

from outside the West,
our leaders declare that rent
means more to New York

than three thousand deaths,
and remembrance of those deaths.
Even if we beat

Islam, I'm afraid
our leaders' "business" values
will destroy the West...

[Axolotl]

I disagree with most of you.

Not only do I like this design, it has been my favorite all along.

I like the crystal look, it is not a box. It looks modern, but not contorted. The lower buildings are practical office space. The spire is mostly unoccupied (would you want an office there), but serves as a tourist attraction and landmark. To top it off, this design really added to the skyline, a capstone that stood out, but it did not dominate the skyline like the last alternative.

I have trouble finding faults with this design.

[ArrogantBustard]

Not shards of glass:

Quartz Crystals.

[Desdemona]

ping

[shadowman99]

I just want to know where the beam up point is located for the Phantom Zone.

[finnman69]

Ok, here's my architectural opinion in this.

I have been disappointed with almost all of the schemes. Personally I liked the Foster scheme the best (twin linked triangular towers).

The Liebskind scheme was picked because it is the most flexible, and will be THE EASIEST TO CHANGE. The Port Authority already wants to add a bus garage at the bottom of the bathtub. PA engineers also have announced that the existing bathtub walls will have to be covered up and protected from the elements or they will degrade. So, by covering up the bathtub walls you wipe out the concept of leaving the walls visible as a testament to their strength. Frankly they are fragile and have to be protected from the weather.

I also have issue with creating a huge memorial plaza 75' down in a hole. This is NYC, NYers and tourists go out of their way to avoid public plazas that involve more than 2 steps up or down. Bad concept. Some of the worst public plazas in NYC are located up or down a level. Holes in the ground do not make for inviting public spaces, plus they act as huge urban barriers that block the paths of pedestrians.

The towers themselves are pie in the sky if you don't build commercial spaceto pay for the rebuilding costs. I think the garden in the sky sounds nice, but in truth will be very very costly. Is the best use for the top of the tower a 1776' elevator ride so you can ride down escalators through an atrium garden? Comments?

The forms of the towers can be ok, and I love having the tallest building back in NYC. The bizarre angular cystaline facade detail expressed in the renderings is awful however. It will be worse in reality. I know he tends to mfavor angular random crystaline shapes, but an expression that suggests deconstructed facades and worse, recalls the jutting, twisted wreckage of the original WTC is in very poor taste. I also think the guy is color blind.

I also predict that Liebskind will eventually quit the commission as he is forced to compromise and modify his design. He has a terrible reputation as a theorist and an idealist. He is not a pragmatist. Much of his work is as yet unbuilt. Just check his website to see how bizarre he is (weblink below). Wait till he has to deal with real commercial developers, the Port Authority, prospective tenants, and City Planning. I see major fireworks coming. Almost all of his buildings have been museums. He has ZERO commercial experience.

People here shoud really educate themselves as to what Liebskind's buildings REALLY look like. They are very very ugly. Check the site below.

http://www.daniel-libeskind.com/projects/index.html

[redhead]

I'm unimpressed. Here's my choice. Look in the background

[firewalk]

I don't like the designs they came up with (not this one either)

I probably wouldn't like anything other than the original design anyway...

[longtermmemmory]

UGLY UGLY UGLY

This is an insult to the united states. It lookes broken. Thich architech, HAH, is just rehashing his prior weird angle design.

An AMERCICAN based company should have this contract period. Germany is in the same camp as france, why not just have the french build this so we can have a complete insult.

A spire? This is an insult. Its like an afterthought. Here you hicks, here is your macho phalic highpoint.

How do we protest this? There was a land swap deal to avoid this type of travisty.

This was never before and especially now, just a building, it was a statement of wealth and power. This is a statement of broken glass. It is almost and inside joke against america to show we were broken.


I am furious but I don't live in NY what can I do against these morons.

[Spiff]

This design is frikkin' retarded. Look at all the crap they have in the top half of the spire. What the hell is all that!? Trees? Gardens? Huh? Tell me how that's going to look in about 15-20 years when interest wanes, budgets fall, tenants find newer digs, and the axe must fall somewhere. It will look like crap and you won't be able to miss it because it all appears above the NYC skyline.

If you look at how Libeskind gang-raped the Jesish Museum in Berlin, Germany you know how utterly awful he is as an architect and designer. He truly SUCKS! And now they're going to erect a 1776 foot vertical turd designed by the esthetically-challenged idiot. His crap is simply a bunch of oddly angled planes that looks like someone took a pair of scissors and cut oddly angled portions out of them.

Jewish Museum - Berlin, Germany - designed by idiot Libeskind:

Look down at the base of the new WTC designs and you see a whole bunch of crap similar to Libeskind's attack on the Jews which is such an atrocity it nearly rivals the Holocaust itself.