Thursday, July 07, 2005

Design by Committee

Slate's architecture critic (Witold Rybczynski) weighs in on the new Freedom Tower design.

The latest version of the Freedom Tower is the best yet.


The tower now has a square footprint (set well back from the street), and a graceful, tapering shape. The gimmicky open-air structure at the top of the tower (which was to have housed wind turbines, of all things) is gone, too. What Childs has produced instead is a simple obelisk, an appropriate shape for a building that is, at least in part, a memorial.
I do not agree with this. I noted earlier that I think that this new design is clunky and anything but graceful...but I'm certainly no critic.

Original Winning Libskind Design:

Compromise Libskind/Childs Design

New Childs Design


See my earlier Freedom Tower posts:
The (all new) Freedom Tower unveiled...
Addition to NY Skyline put on Hold

No comments: