 
 
 | 
 |  |  |
 | | | For all the boldness of some of the designs, it is the politicians, not the architects, who will control the process from here on | | | Pies in the Skies | | | In the end, it is the politicians, not the visionaries, who will control the rebuilding of Ground Zero | |
| | | | | By Gersh Kuntzman
NEWSWEEK WEB EXCLUSIVE | |
| | | |
| | | Dec. 18 — “Today is a day for the visionaries,” Lower Manhattan Development Corporation board member Roland Betts said as he kicked off Wednesday’s unveiling of nine new designs for Ground Zero. | |
| | | | | | |
THAT WAS nice of Betts to say, especially because all the days that follow will belong to the bureaucrats.
For a day, at least, the visionaries held sway. Just across the street from the still-gaping hole where two of the world’s tallest buildings once stood, seven architectural firms presented the nine designs—and many of them were bold, audacious and radical (several designs, in fact, called for restoring the world’s tallest building to its rightful place in lower Manhattan).
The morning press conference was filled with the visionary vernacular such as “thresholds of reflections,” “the new typology,” “synthetic vision,” “an iconic homage to unity, commerce and safety” and “a social contract that elevates the public realm.”
But in the end, what will it all mean? In a word, nothing.
For all the boldness of some of the designs, guys like Betts made it perfectly clear that it is the politicians, not the architects, who control this process. It was that way when the first World Trade Center got built and it will remain that way.
Let’s not forget why we were even gathered Wednesday morning: earlier this year, the LMDC and the Port Authority (owners of the WTC site) hired one firm—Beyer Blinder Belle—to devise six schemes that would restore all of the office space lost on September 11, bring back the retail space and create a fitting memorial—and to do it all without asking businesses to rent offices above a discreet 80 stories or so. | | |
Although each of the designs did that, the public and the press had a field day. Some complained that the designs weren’t bold enough to be the new face of New York. Others complained that the designs paid too much attention to restoring office and retail space and not enough to memorializing the victims. For every person who thought the Beyer Blinder Belle designs were too boring, there was another person saying they weren’t boring enough.
So the LMDC and the Port Authority learned from their mistake. This time, instead of presenting six designs, one more boring than the next, the two agencies surrounded their handpicked design—a dull-but-doable scheme created by the LMDC’s hired in-house consultants, the two-person architecture firm Peterson/Littenberg—with some of the boldest, most innovative, most theoretical and, of course, least practical designs they could find.
In other words, today’s “study project” was a dog-and-pony show and not, as many New Yorkers were led to believe, an actual design competition. None of the nine plans presented Wednesday will be accepted whole. There will be no “winner.” Instead, the LMDC and Port Authority will use these schemes as trial balloons to be put before the public at a hearing in mid-January, just two weeks before the agencies’ self-imposed February deadline.
And everyone knows what will happen at that hearing. After all, the public—even here in New York City—has an appallingly low opinion of architecture. “I like that one that looks like it’s falling over!” mocked one World Financial Center employee as he looked over the scale model of Norman Foster’s twisting, triangular towers, two glass-and-steel buildings that would rise more than 110 stories.
“That one looks like two waffle blocks my kid put together,” said another layman, checking out a Richard Meier, Charles Gwathmey, Peter Eisenman design that looked like, well, two perpendicular waffle blocks.
Every one of the “visionaries” could be similarly mocked. Daniel Libeskind’s design envisions a thin skyscraper filled with foliage (a “Garden of the World,” he called it) soaring over the “Park of Heroes” and the “Wedge of Light,” a bowtie-shaped intersection formed, he said, by lines representing the time when the first plane hit and the time when the second tower fell. As we say in journalism, “Whatever.”
Meanwhile, a group called United Architects called its design for five interlocking towers “a new kind of urbanism” because all five towers come together on the 60th floor—the “city in the sky,” they called it. | | |
With so much visionaryspeak being bandied about, it’s no wonder that after the presentations were all done, Steven Peterson of Peterson/Littenberg was positively crowing. His design calls for two discrete towers and a tree-lined boulevard covering a submerged West Street—both of which were critical elements of several of the rejected Beyer Blinder Belle designs.
“Ours is the only one that solves the urban-design problem,” said the LMDC’s designated planner. “Our design is actually a plan. Ours creates timeless spaces like Bryant Park. Over the years, the buildings around Bryant Park have changed from four-story homes to office towers. But the space is eternal. That shows that architecture is important, but the extravagance and style of it is unnecessary.”
It almost sound like he was reading from the LMDC script. If you read the fine print of the hundreds of pages that the LMDC has cranked out over the past few weeks, it’s clear what’s going on here. “Over the next several weeks, LMDC and the Port Authority will evaluate each of the nine designs based on quantitative factors such as cost, technical feasibility and staging as well as on qualitative factors such as setting for the memorial and open spaces. The goal is to have a final land-use plan in place by February.”
If that’s really the time frame, it’s all over except the shouting. Here’s hoping you like your architecture mundane because this thing is a done deal. Wednesday—the day for the visionaries—is over.
© 2002 Newsweek, Inc.
| | | |
|
Newsweek National News Newsweek |
