Well, I just had to look that one up. Could Osama's rage about being a failed engineer express itself at Yamasaki?
The Mosque to Commerce Bin Laden's special complaint with the World Trade Center.
"...We all know the basic reasons why Osama Bin Laden chose to attack the World Trade Center, out of all the buildings in New York. Its towers were the two tallest in the city, synonymous with its skyline. They were richly stocked with potential victims. And as the complex's name declared, it was designed to be a center of American and global commerce. But Bin Laden may have had another, more personal motivation. The World Trade Center's architect, Minoru Yamasaki, was a favorite designer of the Binladin family's patrons—the Saudi royal family—and a leading practitioner of an architectural style that merged modernism with Islamic influences.The story starts in the late 1950s, when Yamasaki, a second-generation Japanese-American, won the commission to design the King Fahd Dhahran Air Terminal in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia.
.........As a scion of the Binladin contracting firm, destined to inherit some portion of its vast operations, Osama Bin Laden would certainly have been aware of Yamasaki's Saudi Arabian projects. Indeed, his family may have built them. (Minoru Yamasaki Associates won't say, but the Binladens were involved with almost all royal construction.) While Osama was in college in the mid-'70s, Yamasaki was designing his second generation of Saudi work, and the World Trade Center—then the tallest building in the world times two—came to completion in New York. This period was the high-water mark both for Yamasaki's world reputation and for the Saudis' national construction plan—which in Saudi Arabia must have brought a heightened sense of importance to the World Trade Center.
Having rejected modernism and the Saudi royal family, it's no surprise that Bin Laden would turn against Yamasaki's work in particular. He must have seen how Yamasaki had clothed the World Trade Center, a monument of Western capitalism, in the raiment of Islamic spirituality. Such mixing of the sacred and the profane is old hat to us—after all, Cass Gilbert's classic Woolworth Building, dubbed the Cathedral to Commerce, is decked out in extravagant Gothic regalia. But to someone who wants to purify Islam from commercialism, Yamasaki's implicit Mosque to Commerce would be anathema. To Bin Laden, the World Trade Center was probably not only an international landmark but also a false idol.
[SNIP]
But Bin Laden may have had another, more personal motivation. The World Trade Center's architect, Minoru Yamasaki, was a favorite designer of the Binladin family's patrons—the Saudi royal family—and a leading practitioner of an architectural style that merged modernism with Islamic influences.
Thanks; interesting. I wonder if any of Yamasaki's other designs have been targeted by AQ or other groups? Here's a list of some of his other work--I see he also designed Logan Airport. Could be coincidental, but makes you go hmmmm:
Minoru Yamasaki, world-class architect
A partial list of his works:
Urban Redevelopment Plan, St. Louis, 1952
Gratiot Urban Redevelopment Project, Detroit, 1954
University School, Grosse Pointe, 1954
U.S. Consulate, Kobe, Japan, 1955
Pruit-Igoe Public Housing, St. Louis, 1955
Lambert-St.Louis Airport Terminal, 1956
McGregor Memorial Conference Center, Wayne State University, Detroit, 1958
Reynolds Metals Regional Sales Office, Southfield, 1959
Michigan Consolidated Gas Co., Detroit, 1963
U.S. Pavilion, World Agricultural Fair, New Delhi, India, 1959
Dhahran Air Terminal, Dhahran Saudi Arabia, 1961 Federal Science Pavilion, Seattle World's Fair, 1962
Queen Emma Gardens, Honolulu, 1964
North Shore Congregation Israel, Glenco, Ill., 1964
Northwestern National Life Insurance Co., Minneapolis, 1964
Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, 1965
Century Plaza Hotel, Los Angeles, 1966
IBM Office Building, Seattle, 1964
Manufacturers and Traders Trust Co., Buffalo, 1967
World Trade Center, New York, 1976
Eastern Airlines Terminal, Logan International Airport, Boston, 1969
Horace Mann Educators Insurance Co., Springfield, Ill., 1979
Temple Beth El, Birmingham, 1974
Century Plaza Towers, Los Angeles, 1975
Colorado National Bank, Denver, 1974
Bank of Oklahoma, Tulsa, 1977
Performing Arts Center, Tulsa, 1976
Rainer Bank Tower, Seattle, 1977
Federal Reserve Bank, Richmond, Va., 1978
Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency Head Office, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, 1981
Founder's Hall, Shinji Shumeikai, Shiga Prefecture, Japan, 1982
Eastern Province International Airport, Saudi Arabia, 1985