Official Freedom Tower Thread

[Cotuit]

Jackson lets keep architecture and politics seperate here

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Yes let's, so I don't need to delete posts, close this thread, and/or suspend/ban people.

[QLawrence]

It would be nice if they built the twin towers that way, nice renderings

[catdaddy]

i like how its suppose to glow is that spire at the top supposed to make it taller than the sears tower

[SmellyCat]

i like how its suppose to glow is

[Urban_Legend]

After seeing that rendering, I would love to see twins built. That looks rather good, IMO.

[Spartan]

i like how its suppose to glow is  that spire at the top supposed to make it taller than the sears tower

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Pretty cool.  Looks like a light saber.  I think the architect mentioned that final design of the spire was still being worked on.

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Everyone needs to check out this link, scroll to the bottom and view the nightime flyby animation (it doesn't work for my Firefox, so IE may be required ) Its like some kinf of laser-light show.

[Urban_Legend]

^Whoa, that's just crazy. It looks like something from a night club, as well as a lightsaber lol.

[Zissou]

I think at night this building will look amazing and win a lot of New Yorkers over. Spartan is absolutely correct from the stand point that the original WTC was quite controversial. Only over time did people come to love the twin towers. I think this building will be similar in that aspect. I also think that it looks much more impressive with that twin and I wouldnt mind seeing a second being built. Im not sure they would have enough space for it though considering the memorial and the safety measure that need to be taken.

[Spartan]

Another thing that may not have been mentioned yet is that this new design willl have the same height as the old towers. Im glad the short pointy thing with a rediculously tall spire didnt pan out.

[bryson662001]

Did anyone catch the story in the post last week about this design? They said that it is a copy of one of Robert A M Stearn"s early designs for Comcast Center in Philly and Stearn is "flattered" that Libeskind chose to copy his work.

[DavePaulk]

I'm not impressed by the tacky spire, and why only one??? Does the other one not deserve a spire just as much as the first, even if it is a tacky spire? However, I will say that it looks pretty good in the night time shot.

[Zissou]

Did anyone catch the story in the post last week about this design?  They said that it is a copy of one of Robert A M Stearn"s early designs for Comcast Center in Philly and Stearn is "flattered" that Libeskind chose to copy his work.

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I saw that article and looked both buildings over and saw very little in common. I think the Comcast Center did something similar with the corners but on a much smaller scale and that is the only think I see being similar. I mean of probably done dozens of sketches of buildings with that type of feature, does that mean I copied Stearns design? I dont think so.

[lammius]

I LOVE those concepts with the two twin towers. They look great. I wish that would happen!

[Hydraulx]

I think it's very important to remember what America lost on September 11th, and to plan such a memorial for it can't be an easy task. But personally, I think the contemporary design is a bit too exotic for NYC.

[AvianKeahi]

The night lighting concept is great, but I wonder how long it will last when the beacons are shining down into bedroom windows at night.

[oneworldco]

They just wont shine them doun. Just up and out. If they do do that, I want to move to New York City!

[cheeriokid61]

Honestly, I like the first design better. It was just as much spire as this one, but it didn't look like a box with triangles for sides. Besides, the spire looked nice on that one. On the new design, it is ugly and just there. In my opinion, this tower won't be interesting to look at, especially during the day. And that's not good, considering it will be 500 feet taller than the next tallest tower in the city.

[evan d]

ok so which one they gonna use??? picture please

[jvillari]

Sure the tower looks great and all but I'm just not convinced by it... I expected much more out of it all... But hey that's just me.

[intcvlcphlga]

lets keep architecture and politics seperate here

Anyone who has followed the rebuilding process of the WTC site would know that you cannot separate politics and architecture in this instance or in New York City in general. The act of building architecture is inherently political (and always has been from the time of the "primitive hut") and in the case of Ground Zero, George Pataki has staked his legacy on rebuilding the site and ill-fatedly timed the first construction work on the foundations for the now scrapped Childs-Libeskind tower to coincide with the beginning of the Republican National Convention. Ironically, his office was apprised of the NYPD's concerns about the glass base of the tower and it's proximity to the West Side Highway many months prior to the scrapping of that design. Somehow, while he kept himself busy being an ineffective leader constantly fearing being overshadowed by Bloomberg and the legacy of Giuliani, he missed Ray Kelly's memo.

As for the design of the tower, David Childs is well-known in New York as being overtly political and his acquiescence to the business interests of the real estate industry has made him the court architect of the ruling development theocracy that is New York, therefore the building is banal at best and its only saving grace is its height which restores a bit of luster to the Financial District's skyline. In his defense, most architects didn't expect much from him given his lackluster buildings in Manhattan such as Worldwide Plaza and the Time Warner Center, and so the fact that the design for the tower is underwhelming is, well, expected. Further defense for Childs, and his incredibly hard-working SOM staff, is the timeline they were given to redesign the tower - roughly 6 weeks. That was yet another Pataki imposed mandate on the architects meant to save his face while it discreetly spun the public debate to focus the blame onto the NYPD, the LMDC, and virtually every other party to the process save himself.

The two most lamentable aspects of the design are the base and the top. If SOM and their consultants had been given more time, I trust that they would have come up with a much more innovative design than a 200' tall impermeable fortress. The base effectively ignores every urban planning tenet of the last 100 years and makes it a more inhospitable environment than Yamasaki's windswept plaza. For that, the building deservedly should be termed the "Tower of Fear" rather than the "Freedom Tower." Personally, I'm not one for symbolism as a rationaly for design decisions thus I've thought the name "Freedom Tower" has always been lame and the 1776' height equally hokey. And, from a design point of view, there is no spire (a spire is what you find on the Chrysler Building), but rather a flat top at the height of one of the former Twin Towers, which on its own, is perfectly acceptable. But, Pataki promised us a tower that would make us think of Thomas Jefferson and his Declaration, fireworks, apple pie and the like so the means by which Childs then reaches that symbolic height of 1776' is to tack an antenna on top of it. In the end, we get a peak on the skyline which will look great while approaching LaGuardia or JFK or from the Belt Parkway in BayRidge but upon closer examination from Greenwich Street is an inhospitable building with a stick stuck on top.

[tombarnes]

"The two most lamentable aspects of the design are the base and the top. If SOM and their consultants had been given more time, I trust that they would have come up with a much more innovative design than a 200' tall impermeable fortress. The base effectively ignores every urban planning tenet of the last 100 years and makes it a more inhospitable environment than Yamasaki's windswept plaza. For that, the building deservedly should be termed the "Tower of Fear" rather than the "Freedom Tower."

So why must we meekly accept this mediocre, rushed design?

[cameronm]

I think we should rebuild the original towers just as they were. But, this rendering is the best that I've seen. It reminds me of the John Hancock tower in Chicago.

Yeah it is kind of similar to the john Hancock tower.

[intcvlcphlga]

So why must we meekly accept this mediocre, rushed design?

We shouldn't have to accept this design, except for the politics involved particularly the needs of George Pataki to look like he's doing something and the real estate/business/financial concerns of Larry Silverstein who has been paying the Port Authority millions in rent while the site has stood empty.

[torgo]

For that, the building deservedly should be termed the "Tower of Fear" rather than the "Freedom Tower."

No kidding. The base of the building, which is what matters the most, represents the antithesis of freedom. Terrorists attack our buildings, so we...build stronger buildings? This thought seems to accept that idea that terror attacks will happen again, and when they do, we'll need a good hiding place. They might as well put a white flag on the top of it.

[Miesian Corners]

I've tried to read the entire thread, but may have missed somehting. Forgive me if I am saying something that has already been posted.

Before 9/11, a good many New Yorkers despised the WTC. They were huge in scale, put a large part of lower Manhattan in the dark (they blocked out the sun), and were completely out of scale with everything around them. Pelli's World Financial Center was designed to "soften" them against the Hudson River. That said, I thought they were beautiful in their form. I loved how the external steel and aluminum emphasized their verticality. The fact remains, however, that their scale was overpowering to their site.

The new building does almost the same thing. I don't see the need to build a "Freedom Tower". As Americans, (and to a greater extent, New Yorkers), our determination and ability to overcome adversity is already evident. New York is stronger than ever. Why insist on building just for buildings sake? Making a building 1,776 feet to somehow prove something is redundant and silly. Showing the world that a great city will go on regardless of what evil tries to do does and means far more than one (in my opinion) unattractive skyscraper.