At Ground Zero, an Architectural Void No Longer

New York Times ^ | August 01, 2003 | Herbert Muschamp

[AntiGuv]

The site plan represents the destruction of Sept. 11. Now the architecture will provide the creative response. That's the implicit message in the selection of Santiago Calatrava to design a permanent replacement for the PATH station that was destroyed by the attack on the World Trade Center in 2001. At last, the controversial plan developed by Daniel Libeskind for the site begins to make sense. From it, great things might grow.

Mr. Calatrava, 52, is the world's greatest living poet of transportation architecture. A native of Spain, Mr. Calatrava trained as both an engineer and an architect. He is best known as a designer of bridges, train stations and airports, masterworks of our time. Long before the word "infrastructure" had entered the lexicon of contemporary architecture, Mr. Calatrava had taken this genre of design to the level of genius.

Though his main office is in Zurich, in recent years Mr. Calatrava has been living part time in New York. His first American project, a time capsule designed for The New York Times, is displayed at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. The Milwaukee Art Museum addition, his first major public building in this country, opened last year to critical acclaim. Mr. Calatrava is also well known in New York as the architect of a project as yet unrealized: a new transept and spire for the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in Morningside Heights.

Admirers have long detected a spiritual dimension in Mr. Calatrava's secular work, particularly in Spain. The Communications Tower and City of Science complex, designed for Valencia, has the tripartite arrangement of a Gothic cathedral. The Montjuic Communications Tower in Barcelona gestures skyward like a waving hand, as if to consecrate the air through which electronic messages pass. Inevitably, with its taut cables suspended from a single inclined pylon overhead, the Alamillo Bridge in Seville sparks images of celestial harps.

Some structural engineers have criticized Mr. Calatrava for including expressive forms not strictly required by functional needs. That is like attacking an apple for not being an orange. Twentieth-century functionalism is only one of the cultural strains on which Mr. Calatrava has drawn. His sources also include geometry, human anatomy, animal skeletons and other natural forms. Kinesthetics, the perception of movement, is also central to his work. It harks back to a time when expressive form in architecture stood for exuberance and generosity, not a failure to economize.

The choice of Mr. Calatrava is the clearest sign yet that the rebuilding of ground zero will be an achievement of cosmopolitan dimensions. The city has come far from the time, just more than a year ago, when it had entrusted the design process to a local group of insiders bereft of a vision adequate to the historical challenge before them.

It is doubly amazing that this sign of serious intent should be issued by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, an agency whose architectural standards in recent years have slipped comfortably downhill.

Some New Yorkers who have been following recent developments at ground zero may find themselves secretly hoping that there will be fireworks between Mr. Calatrava and Mr. Libeskind. They may get their wish. In the past several months, Mr. Libeskind seems to have forgotten that he was retained not to design buildings, but to assist the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation in preparing a master plan for the 16-acre site.

The corporation appears to have forgotten this, too. It seems that the louder Mr. Libeskind has voiced his demands, the more control he has been awarded over the design of buildings planned for the site. And the state agency has yet to produce an actual master plan.

In his presentation to the agency last December, Mr. Libeskind called for "great architects" to help realize his vision. A client would not, in any case, hire a designer of Mr. Calatrava's stature simply to execute the ideas of an architect who has given some New Yorkers cause to fear that he may have difficulty distinguishing sunlight from shade.

With architects of the quality of Mr. Calatrava, many New Yorkers will find it easier to appreciate the value of Mr. Libeskind's original inclusive approach. A stylized re-creation of the shock waves felt around the world on 9/11, the Libeskind plan has aroused opposition on the grounds that it would inflict a perpetually open wound on Lower Manhattan. The wound would serve a constructive purpose, however, if it were surrounded by unmistakable signs of the city's resilience.

Memory Foundations: that is the name of the proposal Mr. Libeskind submitted last year, and it is a good one. There is much to be remembered on this site, much life along with death. And we must learn to see this project literally as a re-membering, a putting together of pieces that have been violently torn apart.

[AntiGuv]

In other notable developments, the dispute regarding proper location of the landmark tower has been resolved in favor of Libeskind's conceptual design:

Trade Center Arguments Fade, and a Single Vision Is Emerging

Santiago Calatrava also designed the as-yet-unveiled dome for the 2004 Athens Olympic Stadium. Here's the Milwaukee Art Museum:

David Childs - who has been selected as lead architect for the centerpiece Freedom Tower - is noted for a diverse array of designs including: the Washington Mall master plan and Constitution Gardens; AOL Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle; the Changi Airport Rail Station in Singapore, and the U.S. News and World Report headquarters.

[Gunslingr3]

anyone know where I could find an picture of what design they plan to build on the site?

One has to wonder what stage construction will be at by the time the GOP descends on NY for the convention...

[Darksheare]

I don't have a link, but it's an architectural nightmare.
It's ugly, and has tons of useless space that does nothing and adds no function, form, or purpose.

It has been rumored that the supposed 'poll' on what to rebuild with was stuffed in as much that what the people really wanted was suppressed and the architectural 'geniuses' chose pretty much among themselves what to put there.
Or some similar such.
I wouldn't doubt it personally.
However, it is sick that an ugly design 'won' the competition.

[AntiGuv]

Selected Design for the World Trade Center Site

[Daus]

Calatrava is brilliant. But when he did the Art Museum expansion here in Milwaukee, it came in about 200% over budget.

Milwaukee Art Museum

[nightdriver]

That sucker looks like it's trying to take off. I'd hate to see how it would stand up in a real windstorm.

[Darksheare]

Being an artist myself.. I think that it looks hideous, and has lots of useless unneeded space atken up by those ridiculous 'wings' and empennages.
It's ugly and without merit.
I guess that's why it's called progressive.
Give me functionality, form, and beauty in form any day.
The designs I've seen from that guy show NONE of the above.

[Darksheare]

Sorry: atken = taken

[Daus]

I'd hate to see how it would stand up in a real windstorm.

Hence the cost over-runs... the wings are made of a military grade kevlar'esqe material.

[Daus]

Below is an interesting article on what it takes to build one of his works.

What they had to do with the cement work alone is pretty astonishing.

Little things add up for art museum

[Modernman]

Santiago Calatrava to design a permanent replacement for the PATH station that was destroyed by the attack on the World Trade Center in 2001

Sigh.. I miss my old PATH station. My train from New Jersey had gotten about half-way through the tunnel under the Hudson River to the WTC when the conductor reversed it and headed back to New Jersey, telling us there had been an "accident" at the WTC. If I'd gotten on the train that had left 5 minutes before, my day could have ended a lot worse.....

[Darksheare]

Ouch.

I never had occaision to go through the old PATH station at the Trade Center, as I was usually coming in at ground level on foot and not by subway.
Don't rightly remember the last time I was at the Trade Center, but it was some years ago. I'm disgusted that the accepted design is such an awful tasteless and useless waste of space.

[Modernman]

Don't rightly remember the last time I was at the Trade Center, but it was some years ago. I'm disgusted that the accepted design is such an awful tasteless and useless waste of space.

20 years from now, when this design fad passes, the new WTC will look ridiculous. The old towers weren't a work of art, but they were simple and fairly timeless. My grandfather always told me that you can't go wrong with a classic haircut and suit- you won't look ridiculous in pictures 20 years later. I think the same can be said of buildings.

[Darksheare]

They were utilitarian.
They weren't supposed to be pretty, they were supposed to be useful, and they were.
They had a beauty in function that the 'modern-futura' types cannot match or hope to recreate.
And you pretty much sum it up in your haircut analogy.