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The Pits Though Baghdad has fallen like Sonny Liston in his 1965 bout with Mohammad Ali, and Chemical Ali has been reduced to protons and neutrons, we are losing a different yet very important, highly symbolic war on the home front. I recently combed through a pile of newspapers headed for the recycling bin and took a long, hard look at the winning design for the new World Trade Center. The last time I was this disappointed as a New Yorker, John Starks was launching fourth quarter airballs in game seven of the ’94 NBA finals. Submitted by architect Daniel Libeskind, the winner is a collection of mangled and sliced obelisks circling a vast open pit. I wouldn’t want this thing as a set of salt and pepper shakers. In fact, back in the late 80s, my wife and I returned a wedding gift just like it to Hammacher Schlemmer. Proponents of the Libeskind entry emphasize the pit, the depth of which has varied from 70 feet to 30 feet depending on the day of the week. I was never crazy about open caskets to begin with, but this is downright macabre. Apparently, a simple, accessible memorial was just too tasteful, appropriate, and straightforward for Frank Lloyd Wrong and friends. The pit is the pits and is basically a gimmick masking the fact that in the war between real estate interests and respect for the deceased, the real estate interests have come out on top. The whole affair has an eerie Planet of the Apes feel to it, except Taylor at least got to see the top half of the original. The crowning jewel of this monstrosity is the 1,776 foot vertical garden. The height signifies both the birth of a nation and the death of modern architecture. The vertical garden is basically the junkie’s version of Seattle’s Space Needle. The top doesn’t rotate, but the price will make your head spin. It’s hard to fathom how the shape was chosen unless Daniel Libeskind has an emotional need to impale skydivers. It’s essentially a taller, slimmer version of a McDonald’s Play Place, and you hope to God more of them don’t pop up along the LIE. The upper portion of the structure features a steel and glass enclosed botanical garden. Like most gardens, it’s about ten feet wide and forty stories tall. Perfect for a friendly game of badminton. And what better way to top a series of botanical displays than a classically designed 200-foot TV tower? Is this the price we have to pay for better VHF reception? Advocates of the Libeskind vertical garden harp on the ecological meaning of the structure. You want ecology? Try not building this building. Before you read the incestuous reviews in the architecture section of the New York Times pondering the structure’s “functionality,” let us ponder another lofty architectural concept we like to call “vulnerability.” In this age of terrorist attacks, raging fires in public places, and widespread panic, what we really need is a third-of-a-mile high building you have to evacuate single file. Rarely has anything so pointy so thoroughly begged the question “What’s the point?” Its real legacy will be to make Donald Trump’s ego appear tame. The big question, of course, remains—where are they putting the driving range? To add insult to injury, they had to pick a German design. You guys already ruined the Twentieth Century. Now you have to ruin the Twenty-first Century too? Next they’ll get a Japanese landscape architect to do the garden. For good measure, let’s get a team of Saudis to do the interior decorating. (To honor the original twin towers, this Rich’s Rant will be a two-parter.) Click here to rant back. |