David Dunlap tries to work some scandal chic into what was by any measure an innocuous event, yesterday’s RFP conference for the two cultural sites at the WTC site. It’s a sloppy mess, presuming the casual reader will know the proposed location of the musuem site, which will also hold the Drawing Center (never mentioned) and that there is a whole other site for the performing groups. His big flourish is a senseless speculation on what might happen if the selected firm decides to ‘move’ the site, his precedent for this inane point being the ‘bending’ of the rules by prior competition entrants. Except this isn’t a competition, it’s an RFP, and the selected firm will be expected to perform professionally under contract, which is to say, design for the program as it’s delivered.
His trenchant thesis is that the corner location is significant in part because of the potential for sight lines between the Winter Garden (!) and the proposed PATH station, and thus a potentially 15-story museum might obscure some views. It’s interesting how people continue to talk about the site without noting that it will be filled with office towers (eventually). There were no sight lines at the old WTC. There were two, large, repetitive figures that blocked light, and dominated the skyline. The future may not be very much different (especially if Kevin Rampe gets his way). Exactly how is a 15-story museum going to be intrusive when there is a 100-story tower behind it (with a handful of even more bland infill sprouting up another block back)? If anything, the reverse is more important: some of the (potentially) most interesting design work downtown will be dwarfed by the entirely unexceptional first 40-stories of the Freedom Tower.
Beyond that, the most useful part of the column is the partial list of attendees, which included “Arquitectonica, Santiago Calatrava, Diller & Scofidio, Nicholas Grimshaw, Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas, Enrique Norten, Bernard Tschumi and Rafael Viñoly”. All in all, not a bad list, if you trim the front end a bit. Were you to have a sky blue shapeless blazer from Chess King packed away in a closet, you probably remember Arquitectonica best as the firm that made all those wacky apartment towers in the opening credits to Miami Vice. If you have been paying more attention recently, you know they are also responsible for the worst hotel ever constructed in Manhattan (the Westin Times Square, on 8th Avenue and 43rd Street) and the suburban behemoth in the East Village, Avalon Chrystie Place.
Though his list is not presented as exhaustive, we would hope firms such as Steven Holl, MVRDV, Smith-Miller Hawkinson (responsible for underappreciated Pier 11), Herzog & de Meuron, and Richard Gluckman (he might be a little short on total dollars completed, but has a great musuem and gallery portfolio) submit. Stepping down in scale just a tad would allow an even more interesting list with the likes of Office d’A and Mack Scogin/Merrill Elam, and locals such as ARO and Lewis Tsurumaki Lewis.
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Hey, hey, most of the gang’s here.
David Dunlap tries to work some scandal chic into what was by any measure an innocuous event, yesterday’s RFP conference for the two cultural sites at the WTC site. It’s a sloppy mess, presuming the casual reader will know the proposed location of the musuem site, which will also hold the Drawing Center (never mentioned) and that there is a whole other site for the performing groups. His big flourish is a senseless speculation on what might happen if the selected firm decides to ‘move’ the site, his precedent for this inane point being the ‘bending’ of the rules by prior competition entrants. Except this isn’t a competition, it’s an RFP, and the selected firm will be expected to perform professionally under contract, which is to say, design for the program as it’s delivered.
His trenchant thesis is that the corner location is significant in part because of the potential for sight lines between the Winter Garden (!) and the proposed PATH station, and thus a potentially 15-story museum might obscure some views. It’s interesting how people continue to talk about the site without noting that it will be filled with office towers (eventually). There were no sight lines at the old WTC. There were two, large, repetitive figures that blocked light, and dominated the skyline. The future may not be very much different (especially if Kevin Rampe gets his way). Exactly how is a 15-story museum going to be intrusive when there is a 100-story tower behind it (with a handful of even more bland infill sprouting up another block back)? If anything, the reverse is more important: some of the (potentially) most interesting design work downtown will be dwarfed by the entirely unexceptional first 40-stories of the Freedom Tower.
Beyond that, the most useful part of the column is the partial list of attendees, which included “Arquitectonica, Santiago Calatrava, Diller & Scofidio, Nicholas Grimshaw, Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas, Enrique Norten, Bernard Tschumi and Rafael Viñoly”. All in all, not a bad list, if you trim the front end a bit. Were you to have a sky blue shapeless blazer from Chess King packed away in a closet, you probably remember Arquitectonica best as the firm that made all those wacky apartment towers in the opening credits to Miami Vice. If you have been paying more attention recently, you know they are also responsible for the worst hotel ever constructed in Manhattan (the Westin Times Square, on 8th Avenue and 43rd Street) and the suburban behemoth in the East Village, Avalon Chrystie Place.
Though his list is not presented as exhaustive, we would hope firms such as Steven Holl, MVRDV, Smith-Miller Hawkinson (responsible for underappreciated Pier 11), Herzog & de Meuron, and Richard Gluckman (he might be a little short on total dollars completed, but has a great musuem and gallery portfolio) submit. Stepping down in scale just a tad would allow an even more interesting list with the likes of Office d’A and Mack Scogin/Merrill Elam, and locals such as ARO and Lewis Tsurumaki Lewis.