Gaudi bid for Twin Towers memorial (NEW WTC DESIGN)

The Times ^ | January 23, 2003 | Nicholas Wapshott

[MadIvan]

A SOARING, glass-domed tower designed nearly a century ago by the Spanish architect Antoni Gaudí has become the latest entry in the competition to find a replacement for New York’s twin towers.

Grand design: Antoni Gaudi's 1908 commission

Gaudí, the architect of the Sagrada Familia Church in Barcelona, was commissioned in 1908 to build his 1,181ft-tall hotel, to be topped by a public observation platform in the shape of an enormous glass star, in Lower Manhattan, but the project was never realised.

Now Paul Laffoley, a Boston-based architect, has teamed up with scholars and artists from Barcelona to revive Gaudí’s dream, with the new structure decorated with artefacts from the fallen twin towers as a memorial to those who died in the September 11 terrorist attacks.

The revised plans will be unveiled at the City University of New York graduate centre tonight.

“A lot of the other proposals are literal ego trips, but here is a way that everyone can be involved in a historical project from around the world,” Mr Laffoley said. “The Sagrada Familia has become the symbol of Barcelona and Gaudí meant his hotel to be the symbol of New York.”

“If they only knew about this building, the people of New York would come to love it,” Marc Mascort, who has made computer models of the building, said. “Bringing this to New York would be more important than the Olympic Games.”

A decision about what should eventually fill the site at Ground Zero has been repeatedly delayed by confusion about who is entitled to be the final arbiter, with the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, the site owner, the site lessees and Michael Bloomberg, the Mayor of New York, all claiming the final say.

[KineticKitty]

I have to say, that is a beautiful building he designed in that pic.

[Dog]

Can we just rebuild the new ones to look like they were on 9-10-2001??

Enough with all these designs....give us back OUR TWIN TOWERS!!!

[livius]

Ah, 80 story dildos..how clever!

LOL! However, it's definitely a different approach, and might be very interesting with some modification.

I'd like to see the final plans as unveiled at CCNY tonight. Gaudí's stuff is fantastic, but of course, designed for an entirely different type of construction. However, he used mathematical proportions, geometry, and even the physics of light in a way that I think nobody has ever followed up on. He died well before the completion of his masterwork (which is still not completed), and the dreary Soviet-like International Style eventually won out.

This could be something great - or it could be a ridiculous no-starter. But I'm interested in learning more about it.

[bootless]

I am ashamed to say that was my second thought - the first was a Rocketeer-type rocket. What size batteries will it take? (sorry)

[King Nothing]

Build 'em just like they were!

[Defiant]

Escuela means school. I believe you meant "iglesia".

[A Citizen Reporter]

"I want to lock 1000 architects in one room and make them listen to "Rhapsody in Blue" at full volume until one of them GETS it."

Hehehe! I LIKE it! I like it a lot!

[Flying Circus]

A definite improvement over other submissions. Only it looks like somthing out of 1920s SciFi. illustrations.

[JennysCool]

You must learn more about architecture! It is in fact a series of dildos!

[ReformedBeckite]

Maybe he also plans on holding the copyright on those dildos too.

[T Minus Four]

"Looks a trifle cartoonish" More like a phallic symbol! This is awful!

Looks like something the Jetsons would live in.

[Oschisms]

Why is it so hard to come up with a design with the right "look" for the city?

Well, the Twin Towers were the wrong look for the city, too. Stuck out like sore thumbs. But after more than 20 years, their absence leaves a hole in the skyline. The rigid lines and shiny steel of the Twin Towers belonged in Midtown above 42nd St.

If I was an architect, I'd stop trying to be so darn creative and do an old time Art Deco skyscraper. Would fit in fine with the Woolworth building and the rest of downtown.

[Contra]

It looks a bit gaudy to me.

[AnnaZ]

He even made it climb-able, LOL! More on it here: http://www.op.net/~jmeltzer/Gaudi/eltemple.html (It's still under construction.)

[antaresequity]

Build 'em just like they were!

I agree...I would re-build the WTC...It worked fine...looked good...looked American...

[76834]

This thing is uglier than a hickey on a hemorrhoid...

[mewzilla]

ICK. It's not to late to hire John Edwards (the psychic) and have him channel some famous dead architects.

[keithtoo]

Isn't the origin of the word 'gaudy' directly related to the overdone architectural style of Guadi?

Seems like I'd heard of that before.

[hellinahandcart]

Well, the Twin Towers were the wrong look for the city, too.

No, not really. They could have been a little more interesting visually, but the correct "basics" were there---soaring height, clean lines, and slenderness instead of mass. THAT is what works here.

Thos stark skinny towers are looking downright graceful compared to every proposal I've seen so far.

[69ConvertibleFirebird]

Yeah... this designer seems to be stuck on the phalic symbol. Maybe Hillary had some influence in the design, not getting any of the real thing and all she's probably thinking of those wuite often. Either that or Janet Reno.