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| Stacked Children's Blocks? [1] |
Leaning Tower
So the BIG news in skyscrapers this month once again centers
on Lower Manhattan, with yet another addition planned for the infamous Ground
Zero site. Seemingly out of the blue,
Ingles is in and Foster is out, with a newly proposed structure every bit as
strange as the rationale behind it. Gone
is the simple wedge structure with the top sheared off. Out comes the flashy images, sound bites, and
even a wily video to boot.
…so how does this latest project ‘stack’ up?
Yet instead of being a standalone project or a fully new
design, Ingles newest development opted for the firms “YES is More” approach; a
theory is that seeks to prove how any project can work anywhere, at any site,
anywhere in the world. As such, their
newest NYC program echoed the firm’s tentatively ongoing Beach & Howe Tower
building in Vancouver. This ongoing residential
project is designed to lean over a the city’s downtown mega-highway, forcing
high-priced tenants to visually confront one of the harshest forms of transit
the city has to offer. While not
complete yet, it has stirred several forms of controversy and intrigue[3],
being a clever attempt to fill the wedge space common along interstate
overpasses.
But one wonders if a tower initially developed alongside a
large scale motorway could have the same intent or impact at such a delicate
memorial site. This repeat design misses
out on several similar (and largely successful) effects seen in other tower
arrangements elsewhere in the world. The
City of Capital (Moscow International Business Center), or the De Rotterdam
Tower (Amsterdam) both achieved marked notoriety through sequential spacing of
large scale massing and breaking from conventional designs. These projects are a composition of towers,
packed amongst a litany of purposefully rectilinear designs. They bounce the eye backward and forth,
seeking to compete yet respectfully admire.
But unlike his mentor’s sleek designs, every angle of BIG’s proposed 2WTC
looks harsh, jarring and (in the case main rendering) appears like a giant saw
leaning in to cut at the delicate heart of the Ground Zero. The proposal turns its harshest, most glaring
side towards the memorial site itself, giving a sharp edge where it’s least needed. It cuts off the clever ‘shard-stepped’ notion
of Foster and Lebskind’s initial masterplan proposal, and completely ignores
everything else around it. Santiago
Calatrava’s swooping metro station is suddenly swallowed in a canyon of overly
reflective glass. Tribeca gets a southern
view of a corporate stairstep to nowhere. Lastly,
this proposal would also attempt the formerly unimaginable: compete with the
newly coveted One WTC building itself.
Whether ego, ignorance, or crass defiance, Ingles newest
proposal seeks an inadvertent twin to David Child’s simple monolith. While the final floor of the new structure
may indeed be lower than the current roof plane of OneWTC, a louvered screening
wall intended to hide rooftop antennas and television masts purposefully
creates a vanity height that almost matches the main tower’s height itself. This new structure also ‘leans’ its sawtooth with
One WTC’s, in an attempt to catch the former buildings gentle taper. Yet like other pantomime towers at other
sites, it trades real substance for kitsch…….and in doing so, loses both in the
final translation. It adds jags where
clean lines are needed. Flat planes where
soft angles once reigned. Stair-steps in
a city defined by sleek attitude and endless, upward canyons. Like a
child at its dancing mother’s timely coronation (or wake), this building seems to have
forgotten its place.
(screenshot
of the movie - note the height similarities)
But why the insistence upon the importance of One World Trade Center? Well, David Child’s delicate building is something of a fluke unto itself. It succeeds in capturing a million city emotions and remembrance all at once, paying homage while deftly crafting something new. It mimics the flavor of the original tower scheme, being a hybrid of both towers in a 21st century atmosphere. It is meant to be seen from a hundred thousand different angles from all over the city, and present a different view from each of them. In doing so, the tower instantly embraced the context of both the original site and its newfound historical context, favoring nuanced symmetry over neo-Modern swoops or curves. While it is not the best or most fully realized of buildings, it is a kind homage to the dark remembrance pits beside it. It was designed as the centerpiece of the Ground Zero Masterplan, intending to build off the hundreds of layers of sentimentality around it, all at once. It was meant to have no immediate competitors.
Theory(?)
BIG attempts to explain their latest design theory /
rational with a single image; that of several generations of NYC buildings
rising one upon the other, attempting to simultaneously break/build from the
initial ground plane. But unless this
‘stacked’ image is stapled to each corner of the final building, I’m not sure
anyone (myself included) will really get it. New York is an easy place to see actual layers of architectural history
that complement one another, with several nearby buildings achieving this
intended effect through a literal mix of old and new. One only need look at the Ground Zero site
context itself, or the nearby Hearst Tower for a perfect example of this
approach.
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| (Does this count as Arch Theory? ;) [7] |
The one thing I always liked about Foster’s approach was that it a) was the last building that actually had external semblance to Daniel Libskind’s initial, award winning Ground Zero master plan, and b) actually looked like a sleek composite structure, which was intended to fit into a larger whole. Foster's building was also a type of sawtooth, equally suggesting sharp edges pointing skyward. Yet its jags would have pointed away from he scene of tragedy, giving more airspace and views to the scene around it. It was intended to reference and evoke the harshness of the event, but ground it in a feasible reality. It also had a similar semblance to the noteworthy Crain's Communication Building along Chicago’s Grant park, which has long been met with mild praise and general acceptance. The north side would have been sharp, sure and out of contrast with nearby Tribeca, sure…..but what part of lower NYC isn’t? The remainder of the town is already highly accustomed to looking south upon an instant urban canyon, and will likely turn its own back on any attempt to integrate the two.
....and if you’re going to make a ‘twin’ structure to one of the most potent buildings in the world, inadvertent or otherwise, go big or go home. Match it, trace it, embrace it for all its worth: give the city back its stolen Gemini. Earn back their trust through intrigue or grace…..and try not to pretend like they won’t know kitsch when they see it.
Final Thoughts
As has been remarked upon endless times since development of
Ground Zero began: can’t we do better?
Lets get this strait: the WTC site is not like the nearby Hudson
Yards. Twisting, bent, and staggered
skyscrapers do have a time and place……but in the context of refined business
rectilinearity and a memorial context, such a proposed tower seems harshly out
of place. Instead of critiquing or
reigning in the site itself, this latest proposal appears that one more dollop will
be added to the pile. It misses out on
the graced plans of Libskind’s award winning proposal, and leaves we critics to
scratch our heads. We can do
better. We should do better. And at the end of the day, we will do
better.
Maybe it’s time for BIG, and others like them, to start
thinking small.
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[1] http://www.businessinsider.com/bjarke-ingels-describes-his-vision-for-two-world-trade-center-tower-2015-6
[2] http://observer.com/2010/12/new-york-the-place-where-architects-dreams-come-to-die/
[3] https://cityhallwatch.wordpress.com/2013/10/23/westbank-52-storey-tower-howe-granville-pacific-public-hearing/
[4] http://assets.vancitybuzz.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Screen-Shot-2013-10-25-at-2.00.27-AM.png?1f48cf
[5] http://www.dezeen.com/2015/06/09/big-two-world-trade-center-skyscraper-new-york-city-oust-foster-partners/
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