The Times provides a pretty thorough picture of the work currently slated for the WTC site. Though it implies the inevitability of progress, the article is written very specifically about the immediate needs, which would be the precursor of almost any construction, it invokes the future via the senseless mantra of Guileless Pataki ‘Steel in the sky by 2006’ without providing much in the way of how or what that steel would be for. While the amount of detail (given the numerous previous articles) on how a tieback functions is welcome and likely unprecedented — imagine Public Lives stories in twenty years about how the regular coverage inspired the scions of New York elites to abandon fashion and film for engineering — a similarly detailed discussion about the state of financing is perhaps more relevant at this stage. Given Silverman’s grab at the (remaining) money, cleverly framed such that the entire project is presented is needing assistance (whereas previously he claimed the Freedom Tower was fully funded), it throws and even more dense smokescreen in front of the process. My knowledge of the LMDC plans is not exhaustive (meaning additional research might clarify some of these), so the still unanswered questions loom: Who is ‘officially’ — contractually — responsible for site planning? Is the LMDC financing site improvements or Silverstein, as leaseholder? And who has authority here? The role of site improvements is even more crucial than building design, and PANYNJ still owns the site. Are the recently awarded cultural components going to own their facilities (seems unlikely)? What portion of the construction costs are they going to provide? When will comissions be awarded for that portion? And so on. There is a New York New Visions roundtable on Wednesday (details) that might explicate some of these issue (Childs, Arad and Kevin Rampe are scheduled to attended. No Libeskind.), though the coalition is an independent organization of designers, without any force of authority, so the attendees are acting out of courtesy and professional interest. It’s being listed as ‘off-the-record’ and I’ll make an effort to clarify this before it’s over and hopefully be able to provide a recap.
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Now into the hands of dissemblers.
The Times provides a pretty thorough picture of the work currently slated for the WTC site. Though it implies the inevitability of progress, the article is written very specifically about the immediate needs, which would be the precursor of almost any construction, it invokes the future via the senseless mantra of Guileless Pataki ‘Steel in the sky by 2006’ without providing much in the way of how or what that steel would be for. While the amount of detail (given the numerous previous articles) on how a tieback functions is welcome and likely unprecedented — imagine Public Lives stories in twenty years about how the regular coverage inspired the scions of New York elites to abandon fashion and film for engineering — a similarly detailed discussion about the state of financing is perhaps more relevant at this stage. Given Silverman’s grab at the (remaining) money, cleverly framed such that the entire project is presented is needing assistance (whereas previously he claimed the Freedom Tower was fully funded), it throws and even more dense smokescreen in front of the process. My knowledge of the LMDC plans is not exhaustive (meaning additional research might clarify some of these), so the still unanswered questions loom: Who is ‘officially’ — contractually — responsible for site planning? Is the LMDC financing site improvements or Silverstein, as leaseholder? And who has authority here? The role of site improvements is even more crucial than building design, and PANYNJ still owns the site. Are the recently awarded cultural components going to own their facilities (seems unlikely)? What portion of the construction costs are they going to provide? When will comissions be awarded for that portion? And so on. There is a New York New Visions roundtable on Wednesday (details) that might explicate some of these issue (Childs, Arad and Kevin Rampe are scheduled to attended. No Libeskind.), though the coalition is an independent organization of designers, without any force of authority, so the attendees are acting out of courtesy and professional interest. It’s being listed as ‘off-the-record’ and I’ll make an effort to clarify this before it’s over and hopefully be able to provide a recap.