The three tower designs unveiled for Ground Zero last week mostly miss the point, writes The Slatin Report: It's not about them.
Though the designs are far from final â€" the NYPD, for one, will have a crucial role in determining the ultimate configuration of each building's base and placement â€" they do offer a serous glimpse of what could eventually rise at Ground Zero...
...Given the astounding absence of anything to truly unify this complex, one could hope instead for the kind of bracing but reconcilable tension that makes, for example, Foster's new Hearst headquarters building such a triumph in the way it pits old and new against one another yet toward the same end. Foster, recalling that he was on his way to present designs for that building to the Hearst board of directors when the planes struck on 9/11, spoke meaningfully about how the feelings of that day have commingled with the honor of being chosen for this commission by Silverstein. But he and his colleagues have failed to move beyond their own buildings and engage each other's, or to extend out into the breadth of Ground Zero. That's what they need to do, and what we need, for this hole to become a place."
FULL STORY: Vision Not Accomplished
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