Freedom
Tower Reviews
Posted by JoeVare,
3 July 2005
The
revised design by David Childs of 1 WTC was
released 29 June 2005. Gone are the asymmetrical
antenna, sloped roof, open structure, twisting
form and open glass base. The new design relies
heavily on the old World Trade Center design-
heights are set by the old towers, a vertical
pinstriping is meant to be reminiscent of the
old facade, a footprint of the same size of
one of the towers tapers up to another flat
roof.
The
tower changes came several months after published
reports about police concerns regarding the
safety of the previous design. Specifically
after the West Street tunnel was taken out of
the project (to try and encourage a separate
Pei Cobb Freed tower for Goldman Sachs to go
ahead), the New York Police Department feared
the tower was especially vulnerable to a truck
bomb attack. The NYPD wanted (and got) a signifigant
setback and a fortified, windowless base. What
this does is create a potentially unpleasant,
anti urban experience at street level, something
unintentionally closer in spirit to the original
towers than to Daniel Libeskind's approved master
plan.
Early
published reviews of the new design were not
especially favorable. This is a reasonable sampling
of opinion so far:
From
Justin Davison of New York Newsday,
29 June 2005:
"Buffeted
by politics, constrained by cost, shaped by
fear, hurry and the profit motive, the redesign
of the Freedom Tower is better than many expected
and not nearly good enough. Instead of proclaiming
"Here is what we are capable of,"
the new tower mutters "It's the best
we could do, under the circumstances."
If
built as planned, Gov. George Pataki's legacy
will be this: that he pulled back and prodded
at all the wrong times, resulting in a building
that is eminently practical, deeply rational
and elegant enough, but hardly the muscular
symbol he demanded."
From
Blair Kamin of the Chicago Tribune,
30 June 2005:
"Yet
there are problems aplenty. They begin with
the fortresslike base and Childs' idea that
the skyscraper, with its office tower perched
atop its pedestal base, can take its formal
cues from ancient victory columns, such as
Trajan's Column in Rome, a roughly 100-foot-tall
marble column set on large pedestal. The enormous
expansion in scale, from modest-size column
to monumental skyscraper, renders that comparison
ludicrous.
True,
the base's glistening metal panels (they may
be titanium or stainless steel) would conceal
the massive concrete walls behind it. But
this "drapery," as the architects
call it, will not mask the building's startling
lack of transparency at ground level. Glassy
entrances for the offices, the observation
deck and a new restaurant, which will replace
the twin towers' Windows on the World, will
help, but only so much. There would be no
windows in the first 30 feet of the base and
only small windows above. The design does
not achieve a satisfactory balance between
security and openness.
And
despite Libeskind's praise, the Freedom Tower's
skyline presence is dignified, but hardly
stirring. While the tower's triangular facets
should create a constantly shifting presence
in the light, its summit seems awkwardly plopped
atop the tower's shaft, like a World's Fair
folly set incongruously above a sober skyscraper.
The spire itself is a pale echo of the mighty
Art Deco mooring mast atop the Empire State
or the dazzling stainless steel arches that
crown the Chrysler.
Jazz
Age exuberance was rightly out of the question
for such a solemn site, yet the tower's silhouette
remains undistinguished. It leaves one to
wonder whether Childs has been caught in a
trap of his own making by following the geometry
and the height of the original twin towers
so reverently. His plan is good, but the circumstances
call for great."
From
James Russell of Bloomberg News, 29
June 2005:
"This
looks like the building Larry Silverstein
always wanted and one that fits nicely into
his undistinguished building portfolio, which
includes One River Place, west of Times Square.
It's appalling to think of this tower dominating
the skyline, and its mediocrity is an insult
to the significance of the site... Childs
has substituted elegance of detail for inspiration.
You can see his style by looking at the building
he designed to replace Silverstein's WTC 7.
The glass curtain wall of the tower (a collaboration
with artist and glass designer James Carpenter)
is thoughtful and clean. Yet the building
says nothing about its place, its time, its
use.
He's
sadly the wrong guy for the tower. State,
city, and Lower Manhattan officials have acquiesced
to this feeble vision. It shows the degree
to which the process at Ground Zero has gone
off the rails."
From
Nicolai Ourousoff of The New York Times,
30 June 2005:
"The
new obelisk-shaped tower, which stands on
an enormous 20-story concrete pedestal, evokes
a gigantic glass paperweight with a toothpick
stuck on top. (The toothpicklike spire was
added so that the tower would reach its required
height of 1,776 feet.)... The effort fails
on almost every level. As an urban object,
the tower's static form and square base finally
brush aside the last remnants of Mr. Libeskind's
master plan, whose only real strength was
the potential tension it created among the
site's structures. In the tower's earlier
incarnation, for example, its eastern wall
formed part of a pedestrian alley that became
a significant entry to the memorial site,
leading directly between the proposed International
Freedom Center and the memorial's north pool.
The alley, flanked on its other side by a
performing arts center to be designed by Frank
Gehry, was fraught with tension; it is now
a formless park littered with trees."
 Click
here to see some pictures at the LMDC's Freedom
Tower page
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