“The lamentable Freedom Tower would be a constant reminder of our loss of ambition, and our inability to produce an architecture that shows a genuine faith in America’s collective future rather than a nostalgia for a nonexistent past.” From Nicolai Ouroussoff via Blog Vivant.
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I’m neither American, nor nostalgic about architecture but when I visit Ground Zero on a trip last year and saw the plans and “artisits impressions” of the new Freedom Tower I thought it looked fantastic…
The highlight is surely the point at the top – many people seem to think this is a cheap way of getting extra height for the record books, but no one seems to state the obvious… A wonderful middle finger salute to the east…
You discredit yourself upon introduction: you’re neither American nor architecturally literate, so what right have you to weigh in on the defining architectural statement of this American generation?
The Freedom tower will not be the “tallest building in the world,” and I certainly hope it’s not a “middle finger salute to the east.”
Nothing could be more detrimental to our status in the world, and it’s not the place of architecture to make such statements.
As Ourousoff says, the tower should be welcoming, optimistic, and public, traits that will further our causes in the world, rather than compound existing hostility.