Posted by philippe orlent on September 30, 2001 at 15:13:14:In Reply to: Re: Rebuilding World Trade Center - postscript posted by Hazel K on September 30, 2001 at 12:17:57:
Hazel,
I have been following the majority of your posts on designcommunity.com since sept. 17th and I must say that besides the fact that I appreciate your poem-like style, I particularely like your vision. Most of the time (IMHO) you try to show people both sides of the story and to put what happened in a right perspective.
If I'm not mistaken you're British, in any case non-US, and I guess that is what makes it easier to keep the necessary "recul" on this tragedy.
Or won't this be such a tragedy after all? The WTC was huge, but was it beautiful (apart from the gothic bowslike base section)? It dominated lower Manhattan, but isn't there already something wrong with the word "dominate"? Studies show that almost any major fire in such kind of building (and there are many) would provoke the same result. Isn't it about time to start thinking on how to improve the buildings still standing? And a far more important question: Shouldn't we start thinking on the system these towers glorified? A system that is already using this disaster as an excuse to get rid of whatever it wants to get rid of.
This does not mean that I approve of what has happened, on the contrary, I despize any form of violence or absolutism, but, as I already mentioned in a reply to a man that wanted them "higher, bigger, and above all, exactly the same as before", I do believe in the Greek myth of Icarus: once you fly to high, you burn your wings and fall down. Maybe the world is flying a bit too high at the moment. In any case, I already see (minor) signs of European politicians that start to grab this. In most of the U.S., this path of thought is still unthinkeable: they lost a child and are still wondering if they should leave its room untouched. I can understand this. And I do empathize.
If I wanted to provoke anything by this design, than it was this: We all have to go on. We have to start thinking about what comes. But we must not forget what has happened before, since history is a great teacher. So, make it bigger and better, but do it on a quality level, not on a quantity level. Start a project that will get us a step forward on the evolutionary ladder. Start thinking global, on a human level. And do it with a large and representative group of savants. Whether it is with a design such as mine, or a completely different one, I don't care (much, since I still defend what I conceived). This might just be such an enormous opportunity!
I "shall now shut up", but won't stop thinking. I did everything what I, in my eyes, had to.
Sincerely yours,
Philippe Orlent
P.S. If you'd find orthographic, grammatical or vocabular errors, my apologies. I'm not a native speaker and don't have my dictionary within reach.
|
Search
ArchWeek
Buildings
Architects
Types
Places
Pix
Free 3D Models
Store
Library
|