What is a Freedom Tower made of? Pure spin. Perhaps never before has a project been so encased in rhetoric, and never has that rhetoric turned out to be so feebly incapable of obscuring the bankruptcy of the ideas beneath.Read about how this project, conceived after 9-11 with the highest optimism, is limping towards its sad, diminished conclusion.
Check out Rafael Viñoly's lecture at the MIT website concerning the competition - the two hour video explains how the stage was set for this tragedy.
ReplyDeletehttp://mitworld.mit.edu/video/121/
I think what has gone on at Ground Zero since Libeskind’s original plan was accepted is incredibly sad. While I agree with you that this project (Freedom Tower, and even the Memorial) has brought out the worst in the ‘players’ you named, to my mind, this entire episode actually goes even further and brings to light just how un-together we are as a society right now: no one can agree on anything, everyone has their own agenda, facts or sensitivity are damned as ‘in the way’ and greed wins in the end.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I fully realize they are different situations for a number of reasons (size, money, political, etc.), just compare this project to Carol Ross Barney’s Federal Campus and Butzer Design Partnership’s Memorial in Okalahoma City -- a building sensitive to security concerns, to the needs of users of that building AND aesthetics; a memorial which is designed to honor and heal. Did I miss something, or was there this much…crap and infighting…involved with that reaction to that terrorist tragedy?
There is a Laurie Anderson live album recorded right after 9/11 where she (optimistically) states that this is a chance for us to have a new beginning together. The Freedom Tower design takes Ms. Anderson optimism and steps all over it.