Architect 2014-07.pdf

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ARCHITECT THE AIA MAGAZINE JULY 2014 WWW.ARCHITECTMAGAZINE.COM
surprise given that the sun rises in the east and
the World Trade Center (WTC) is located at what
used to be the western edge of Manhattan.
Then Libeskind’s 1,776-foot-tall Freedom
Tower, which was supposed to be an abstract
homage to the Statue of Liberty—robes swirling
and torch held aloft—got whittled into a far
more normative tower, with corners neatly
chamfered by David Childs, FAIA, of Skidmore,
Owings & Merrill (SOM). The tower was further
reined in by the New York Police Department’s
demands for maximum blast protection at street
level. And, finally, developer Douglas Durst
(who bought a stake in the building in 2010) dechamfered
the corners at the base and rid the
antenna at the top of the tower of its distinctive
sculptural sheathing. And now the former
Freedom Tower looks a lot like something you
might find in any second-tier Asian city.
But more damning, perhaps, than
Libeskind’s poetry being pummeled into prose,
was the fact that a new, rather spectacular
New York began sprouting up elsewhere, most
notably in West Chelsea, where the innovation
spurred by the High Line has begun to merge
with the 26-acre Hudson Yards, a project
that promises to mix high-end office space,
residential towers, and cultural venues to create
a lively new part of Midtown.
The WTC that finally emerged from
behind its security fence this spring is certainly
not the old place—where 1960s ideas about
radically reshaping cities reached some sort of
apotheosis—but it also isn’t the best example
of 21st-century urban design in New York. It is
a development shaped—and restrained—by
too many forces and driven by very powerful
conflicting desires: to commemorate the horrific
thing that happened and to render the evidence
of that cataclysm invisible.
ON THE OTHER HAND, I’m sometimes surprised
by the quality of the architecture on—and
near—the site: The best building is still 7 WTC.
SOM, working closely with glass specialist
James Carpenter, designed the 52-story tower,
clad in a low-iron water white glass, for the
north side of Vesey Street. A replacement for
a clunky 1980s granite-covered building that
fell on Sept. 11, it was built quickly, completed
in late 2005, with no scrutiny from the site’s
“stakeholders” because Consolidated Edison
badly needed the power substations that were
at the base of the old 7 WTC. The result is a
sensually pleasing tower that channels Lever
House without imitating it. And the Jenny Holzer
installation behind the reception desk remains
one of the smartest, most eye-catching artworks
I’ve ever seen in an office-building lobby.
While 7 WTC snuck up on me, I watched
4 WTC, designed by Fumihiko Maki, Hon. FAIA,
Aerial view of the World Trade Center site