The Aerie
The new designs for the World Trade Center reconstructions/memorials
[1]are in.
After review, my only question is, "You know, what would be wrong with
just putting up a building?"
[2][firme_sig2.jpg] Take the THINK towers: yeah, okay, so we're
memorializing the WTC by evoking the spirit of the lost buildings. But
are those latticeworks going to contain any usable space, or are they
just big terrorist death-traps? "Ha! Fly your planes into THESE you
farging bastiches, and all you'll kill is YOURSELVES. Well, and the
people on the planes. And whoever gets killed by the falling
wreckage..."
[3][firmd_sig1.jpg] The Libeskind proposal looks appropriately
new-agey that it at least would partically fulfill the promise of
flying cars and groundless skyscrapers offered by "The Jetsons." But
on the other hand it looks more like a giant letter-opener than a
piece of real estate.
[4][_38730365_gaudiagainwtc150ap.jpg] Now, those designs might look
futuristic, but they're nothing compared to those proposed by the
aptly named Spanish architect Antoni Gaudi. His rocketship-to-the-moon
proposal, as tall as the Empire State Building, has to be considered
even if only for its purely Dadaesque qualities. I mean, as an
anti-terrorism measure this is laudable: nobody's going to screw with
a city that appears to have a one-thousand-foot-tall rocketship parked
in its midst. Who knows what that thing can do? Maybe lasers shoot out
of gun ports! Maybe it takes off and blows up Paris! Maybe it belches
forth a master race of alien overlords when provoked. Nope, nope,
better leave that bad-boy alone...
So I say again, "What's wrong with just putting up a building?" You
know a BUILDING. Tall. Rectilinear. Windows, doors, that sort of
thing?
Put a nice plaza out front with a respectful memorial to the honored
dead. Fountain. Benches. Grass. Trees. And behind it, a big, strong,
broad-shouldered BUILDING, made of stuff like steel, granite, and like
that.
I mean, hey, I'm no architect... Maybe these guys know something about
buildings I don't. But in my old-fashioned, uneducated,
chewin'-straw-in-th'-corner-o'-mah-maouth world buildings looked like,
well, buildings. Not scaffolds, rocketships or letter openers...
"buildings."
Could we get one of those?
[5]Last
Posted by Albatross at February 5, 2003 12:00 AM