Design for the new World Trade Center unveiled.

[madinmaryland]

Skyline:


Edited to add link: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/07/nyregion/08towerscnd.html

The developer of the new World Trade Center unveiled the designs this morning for three skyscrapers at ground zero, which in their gargantuan scale would reshape the New York skyline.

Each building has a different renowned architect — Norman Foster and Richard Rogers, both of London, and Fumihiko Maki of Tokyo — and the result is entirely unlike the monolithic uniformity of the original trade center.

The office towers, designated simply Towers 2, 3 and 4 for now, would occupy three sites between Church and Greenwich Streets, along the eastern edge of the trade center site. Together with the winged PATH terminal and transportation hub, they would form the face that the trade center presents to the rest of downtown, with the signature Freedom Tower behind them.

The designs presented this morning by the developer, Larry A. Silverstein, together offered the most comprehensive picture to date of what the finished complex might — just might — look like six years from now.

..snip

I worked in the lower Manhattan for ten years, and am not sure what to think oof this design. Any comments?

[Clark2008]

1. Well, they're better than the last set of proposals, but that's not

saying much.

[NYCGirl]

2. I would have preferred a nice, serene park, but the real estate is too

valuable, I guess.

[Mist]

12. Actually, there's something like a 25% vacancy rate in the lower

Manhattan area. They could easily make the site a park.

[NYCGirl]

20. They could, but I think they're probably hoping the vacancy rate will

lower with time. With a park, that rental property is gone.

[JHB]

3. Looks a little more interesting than the last go-round

...but I'm still kinda bummed the Blade-Runner-esque building didn't win the competition. :evilgrin:

[sentelle]

4. Hmm Where did they put Daniel Libeskind?

I kind of recall him winning that particular competition, but this looks like some sort of crappy Skidmore Owing and Merrill Dreck.

If they build this, the terrorists have won. And developers will be working with them.

[whistle]

5. Is this what the people of NYC want?

[madinmaryland]

6. I think the people of NYC want something a bit less auspicious.

If I still worked there, I would prefer somthing that would blend into that part of the city, and also a large memorial/park in that area.

[sentelle]

15. Having been a NYer for 30+ years

and having worked in the Architectural field, I think all of these buildings are crap.

Sure, the original Yamasaki towers were nothing much to look at, often being called "the packing crates for the Empire State Building", These buildings trivialise what happened on that site.

These buildings could be anywhere, and pay no contextual homage to either New York City's Architectural heritage (The Chrysler Building, Empire State building, Woolworth Tower, Seagrams building, guggenheim museum, etc.) or 9/11.

This looks like business as usual, like the developer doesn't care about the people of NYC, or the events of 9/11.

[foreverdem]

24. You got that right

I've lived and worked in NYC for 20+ years, and these buildings are totally inappropriate and look completely out of place. Many NY'ers surveyed wanted to towers rebuilt as they originally were, but that's not happening.

This design is one of the ugliest things I've ever seen.

[whistle]

31. That was my reaction also, the new design looks like buildings

...in Dallas, LA or Detroit. Maximize rental space and price per square foot, that's all. What is worse is that they jumped right out as new targets for future bullies to knock down and they look like they'll come down even faster than WTC1, 2 and 7 did on 9/11. I certainly would not care to be anywhere near buildings like these to work at or visit or even walk or drive by. That is my perception and I know it is grim.

[newyawker99]

30. No, it is not what this NewYorker wants.

:puke:

[bif]

7. Too big for the skyline

I always hated how the original WTC was way out of proportion with the rest of the Manhattan skyline. This is almost as bad.

[ThomWV]

8. Too Ugly For The Mind To Comprehend

Not that my opnion on the matter counts for anything, its not my city, I'll never live to see the building built. Butt-ugly looking picture though.

[JCMach1]

9. Fascist architecture for fascist times...

in a word, YUCK!

Vulgar, arrogant, obscene

[ContraBass Black]

10. They don't match.

Six years? I thought it would take much longer.

[Marr]

11. I think it looks like a Christo-Fascist temple, personally.

[TahitiNut]

19. Capitalist Crystal Cathedrals to Profiteering Priapism

:shrug:

[npincus]

13. I want The Towers re-built, as they were, with

new-improved life safety features of course.

[lonestarnot]

23. Me too! This looks like a shitpile!

[Spinzonner]

14. What, no target symbols on the sides ?

:sarcasm:

[FredStembottom]

16. Who will want to move in?

With all the emotional baggage of being in a new World Trade Center?

Do they have committed tennants already?

[kskiska]

17. Isn't there a better name than "Freedom Tower"?

It's reminiscent of "Freedom Fries".

Aside from that, I just wish they'd build something. It doesn't even have to be a skyscraper. How about something along the lines of the Guggenheim at Bilbao?

[TahitiNut]

18. There's a not-so-thin line between 'memorializing' the lives lost ...

... and creating a monument to terrorism. Far too much of what I see does the latter. Any 'memorial' MUST be done at human scale - at the pedestrian level - for it to properly represent the human toll. When the scale goes beyond that, it becomes a monument to Death and Exploitation. Most of what I'm seeing is a Capitalist Erection amounting to Profiteering Priapism - 9/11 Viagra.

[Jed Dilligan]

21. It will be a monument...

...to how ugly the soul of this nation has become in the last five years.

Well, for however long it lasts at least.

[Taxloss]

22. Ugh! Bland, bland, bland, bland!

:puke:

Horrible, a vertical shed for money.

[MamaBear]

25. This New Yorker says Yuck.

This really looks like it was designed by a committee of people who aren't speaking to each other.

However, it appears to preserve the footprints, which is important to The Families.

I think a park would have done just fine, myself. In fact, would have been preferable. I don't imagine there will be a stampede to sign up for new leases, so the corporate welfare will flow big time to get firms to move in.

Just in time for somebody whose brother was tortured in Gitmo for five years to bring them down again.

Utter, foolish folly. Maybe I'll like them better when they're built, if that ever happens.

[dancing kali]

26. In that wide shot...

am I the only one who thinks it looks like the 2nd building on the left looks like the top is falling over?

I would think that is one visual that people in New York would prefer to have seen only once.

It was the first thing I thought when I saw that picture.

[MamaBear]

28. Yes. That one gives me the creeps. eom

[musette_sf]

27. EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEUW

no no no no no

i watched the WTC go up, and my first apartment had a view of lower Manhattan. i had to watch the WTC come down on national TV thanks to Bu$hCo and PNAC.

build the damn buildings again, one story taller.

http://www.triroc.com/wtc/
Make New York New York again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[LibertyLover]

29. Can we have a do-over please?

I used to work on Wall Street and took the PATH train from Hoboken to the WTC station in the morning and back again at night. If I had still been living in New Jersey, I would have been in the WTC when the first plane or just a block or so away. Instead I got to watch the Pentagon burn from my office on Pennsylvania Avenue. Anyway, in my opinion these designs are ugly. It's not that the original design for the WTC was any great shakes, mind you, but these are just so wrong. As much as I'd like to leave the area a park to commemorate the attack, I'm realistic enough about NYC real estate to know that's not going to happen. Still, as much as I did not care for the original design (way too big for the NYC skyline in my estimation and I'm old enough to remember what the skyline looked like before they were built too) I honestly think I would prefer that the WTC be rebuilt as it was. Heck, I'd even put them right back in the original footprints of Towers 1 and 2, but that's just my opinion and YMMV.