NEW YORK | One World Trade Center | 1,776' Pinnacle / 1,373' Roof | 108 FLOORS

[The Grand Architect]

Another quick pencil sketch with added effects in photoshop:

[Romanwtc]

These buildings will look great! It will definatly change the skyline! But the thing that really hurts me to say is that basically the terrorist won. no, I'm not trying to start a debate. (it's too late for that) but the terrorist obviously didn't want the Twin Towers, so they took them from us. And now we won't rebuild them. Meaning they got what they wanted. It really hurts me to say this. I am personally a Huge fan of the WTC towers. I never got a chance to see them I'n person. And now I will never have that chance..

[djlx2]

Originally Posted by Romanwtc

These buildings will look great! It will definatly change the skyline! But the thing that really hurts me to say is that basically the terrorist won. no, I'm not trying to start a debate. (it's too late for that) but the terrorist obviously didn't want the Twin Towers, so they took them from us. And now we won't rebuild them. Meaning they got what they wanted. It really hurts me to say this. I am personally a Huge fan of the WTC towers. I never got a chance to see them I'n person. And now I will never have that chance..

I thought this was about the construction, and the idea from that was taking the misery and turning it into something beautiful. Like angels from ashes. I didn't like having the most beautiful idea of city architecture destroyed. It was heartbreak. I don't know what you're saying about the terrorist but I guess everyone has their own view on winners and losers. So I guess everyone has their own idea of architecture too and what the new buildings really mean.

[Troubadour]

Originally Posted by Romanwtc

These buildings will look great! It will definatly change the skyline! But the thing that really hurts me to say is that basically the terrorist won. no, I'm not trying to start a debate. (it's too late for that) but the terrorist obviously didn't want the Twin Towers, so they took them from us. And now we won't rebuild them.

There is some truth to this, and I felt exactly the same for many years. The terrorists hated those towers with a special passion above and beyond their other targets because of how truly awesome their design was - they stood as pillars of the sky rather than tenuous abstractions like most skyscrapers. Al Qaeda bore an almost personal grudge against them, because they represented a modern incarnation of the Hellenic sensibility of human proportion and simplicity: Something deeply and intrinsically offensive to religious fundamentalists.

Contrary to the opinions of many stick-up-the-🞵🞵🞵 art critics, the towers were not soulless corporate edifices, but tributes to mankind - because they looked from a distance like mere children's blocks rather than anything pretentious or self-important. That combination of internal humility and fearless assertiveness captured the soul of what is best in Western civilization. They were a thoroughly human construct on a superhuman scale, and so it infuriated the sensibilities of people whose minds are anti-human. So yes, in a superficial sense they won by taking away those towers, but in another they lost more completely than they could have had their attack failed: The towers are now immortal in human memory. It was an Obiwan Kenobi-like sacrifice.

But there is another positive side to the new WTC that shouldn't be overlooked: We're moving on instead of being enslaved to the past. If we absolutely insisted on rebuilding the towers - safer and stronger, but outwardly the same buildings in the same location - then we would essentially be allowing terrorists to dictate the future instead of keeping our eyes forward. Who says the greatest towers in NY must eternally be in that location? Who says they must look a certain way? The Parthenon we revere today was built after the Persians destroyed an earlier incarnation. So who is to say what glories await the New York sky? Looking how the new 1 WTC is shaping up, I am quite optimistic.

[djlx2]

There were many things that were beautiful about the original twin towers: they were a thoroughly human construct at greater heights, which was greater because they weren't ostentatious. Their duality in purpose is what made them stand out on the skyline despite the appearance of simplicity, which was also in ways construct for that duality. Part of it for reflectivity, because part of the nature of skyscrapers is for what they reflect.

The WTC complex isn't the same by the reality of its own construct. Part of it is testament, or memorial, because that's what hallows the site. The structures of the complex are going up at different heights, on a different timeline, because the hallowed nature of the site itself is conflicted as well as what memorial means for its future. I would like to look up at the new constructions and only be amazed at the fact that they're taking place; but there are times when there is so much uncertainty about what stands behind their future that I'm unsure whether or not I should be embracing the uncertainty, or whether I'm staring at an idea that won't take place in my lifetime.

Part of the simplicity of the twin towers is because they were an innocent idea. That idea was more children's blocks because there wasn't an idea then of a scarred future. When you look at the site now you see the scar of the surface as much as you see the idea of construction; until the full complex takes hold you can't see the brightness of the future without seeing what damage history made. We only see stages of construction.

[Tower X]

I didn't really like the WTC twin towers. They looked rather plain and boring.

But i really like this one! One of my fav buildings!

[Troubadour]

Originally Posted by djlx2

until the full complex takes hold you can't see the brightness of the future without seeing what damage history made. We only see stages of construction.

This is true, but future generations won't see "damage." They will not smell the ashes of the past, even if they appreciate its memory from a distance as a sacred tradition. Most people alive today can't see WW2 for the urgency, fear, horror, and desperation it engendered, but mainly as a dramatic prelude to the present. The same will be true of 9/11: It will not be seen as the day we lost the towers by generations that never knew them in the present tense, but as the beginning of the new WTC, conceived in the ashes of its godlike predecessors.

They will not judge Freedom Tower and its colleagues by how well they reflect on the fallen, but rather vice-versa: Critics of future generations will judge the old towers through the lens of their children, and say either "The old towers captured an immortal magic that shone even more brightly in its risen phoenix," or "They were a bland and meaningless corporate edifice transformed into something magical by their destruction and resurrection."

The new 1 WTC is shaping up to be something new in the world. It does not replace, and does not seek to replace, what its predecessors were, but taps into something else entirely. Some of the reflected cloudscapes we've already seen in the cladding to date border on the divine, and it can only get more awesome as the exterior work moves forward. It is my solemn opinion that this building will come to achieve a status beyond even that of the Empire State Building, and will reach the kind of deep cultural reverence reserved for things like the Notre Dame and the Colosseum. I think we may be witnessing the rise of something whose true depth we cannot appreciate in the day-to-day construction details and incremental progress.

In its reflections, it does not paw at the sky like so many spindly buildings; it does not reject the sky like Brutalist hulks; and it does not express a lonely equality to the sky, like the confident and well-proportioned fallen towers; rather, it becomes the sky. It melds with it, like a vertical river - sublime music in the form of a skyscraper. And that's just the one tower of the complex: Who knows what wonders will be revealed in the real-world presence of buildings we've only seen as renderings? If the revelations of those cloudscape reflections are any omen, the new WTC will be like the Ode to Joy personified in walls of glass.

[djlx2]

I agree with these entirely.
To make this vision complete, you need to enable growth and construction in harmonious way, even if it's not seamless. Like a river, it has to have its own natural pulse and duration. For the colossal greatness you describe, structures should learn from one another's pattern, in a way that's not necessarily identical in form or construction, that doesn't involve mirroring, and is guided rather than rushed but with an ultimate goal or trajectory in mind.

"Pawing" is a little rough a term for many structures in the landscape, "hurrying for" would be a better way to describe spires, since this all has to do with duration, and not trying to fulfill archetypes. Unlike Brutalism, you don't want a style that reflects its surrounding environment of urban decay, or disregarding historic growth with a focus on more recent destruction. In terms of lonely equality, you don't want the buildings to be lonely. And given the different growth of the various sites on the WTC construction site it's more difficult to reconcile the loneliness of each current individual structure in progress with the vision of the site's harmony as a whole.

The idea for the site is reverent and it is something that aspires to greatness, again, in a harmonious way. If we want it to be better than its now-wrecked godlike predecessors, we have to have a better god's-eye view of how that's possible, which involves understanding the motives behind other architecture, in order to evolve beyond it without focusing upon it; focusing instead on what we would like to have happen and the ways it might be accomplished, without allowing design for these methods to feel rushed into venues that take away, rather than give to the structure; enabling harmony altogether through mutual effort rather than restriction; and, in short, not necessarily have mirrors looking down at poor foundational decisions but reflecting ways it might be able to climb higher. You can have beautiful dreams for an architectural landscape. When it's an actual site rather than a vision you also have the difficult of developing it in a way that mutually supports all of the projects within the landscape.

In a consistent way, that allows them to all be constructed simultaneously without the focus involving evolution of one at the setback to another, possibly at the detriment of them both. It's about having a vision instead of a focus on just one or another project. Harmony isn't insisted to be created; harmony is natural reciprocation; harmony is key.

[sterlippo1]

Originally Posted by Troubadour

In its reflections, it does not paw at the sky like so many spindly buildings; it does not reject the sky like Brutalist hulks; and it does not express a lonely equality to the sky, like the confident and well-proportioned fallen towers; rather, it becomes the sky. It melds with it, like a vertical river - sublime music in the form of a skyscraper. And that's just the one tower of the complex: Who knows what wonders will be revealed in the real-world presence of buildings we've only seen as renderings? If the revelations of those cloudscape reflections are any omen, the new WTC will be like the Ode to Joy personified in walls of glass.

beautifully stated Troubadour, well done indeed

[STR]

Preview:

Pano: http://www.mediafire.com/?vm1i2apr6231tp6

Requires Quicktime

[TAK]

WOW STR!!! Very nice work. I love it, fun to look at and play with . Thanks for your work.

[twintowersII-2011]

gives a good idea how the new top of the world wil be

[The Grand Architect]

Remember, It's rebirth- Not rebuilt.

[pico44]

Originally Posted by Troubadour

This is true, but future generations won't see "damage." They will not smell the ashes of the past, even if they appreciate its memory from a distance as a sacred tradition. Most people alive today can't see WW2 for the urgency, fear, horror, and desperation it engendered, but mainly as a dramatic prelude to the present. The same will be true of 9/11: It will not be seen as the day we lost the towers by generations that never knew them in the present tense, but as the beginning of the new WTC, conceived in the ashes of its godlike predecessors.

They will not judge Freedom Tower and its colleagues by how well they reflect on the fallen, but rather vice-versa: Critics of future generations will judge the old towers through the lens of their children, and say either "The old towers captured an immortal magic that shone even more brightly in its risen phoenix," or "They were a bland and meaningless corporate edifice transformed into something magical by their destruction and resurrection."

The new 1 WTC is shaping up to be something new in the world. It does not replace, and does not seek to replace, what its predecessors were, but taps into something else entirely. Some of the reflected cloudscapes we've already seen in the cladding to date border on the divine, and it can only get more awesome as the exterior work moves forward. It is my solemn opinion that this building will come to achieve a status beyond even that of the Empire State Building, and will reach the kind of deep cultural reverence reserved for things like the Notre Dame and the Colosseum. I think we may be witnessing the rise of something whose true depth we cannot appreciate in the day-to-day construction details and incremental progress.

In its reflections, it does not paw at the sky like so many spindly buildings; it does not reject the sky like Brutalist hulks; and it does not express a lonely equality to the sky, like the confident and well-proportioned fallen towers; rather, it becomes the sky. It melds with it, like a vertical river - sublime music in the form of a skyscraper. And that's just the one tower of the complex: Who knows what wonders will be revealed in the real-world presence of buildings we've only seen as renderings? If the revelations of those cloudscape reflections are any omen, the new WTC will be like the Ode to Joy personified in walls of glass.

Wow, that was a nice read.

[Traynor]

Originally Posted by pico44

Wow, that was a nice read.

While it was a good read and nicely composed prose, it was also hyperbolic, inspirational, American-centric boosterism. It may all be true and actual sentiments for residents of New York and partially true for the rest of the United States but for the rest of the world it will most likely not think about buildings or architecture when looking back historically at 9/11. It will most likely be viewed as a turning point in how the world works and its loss of innocence.

This a nice complex and any city would be proud to have it, but the critics have a point about its impact.

The original was on twice the scale to its surroundings and ahead of its time for the technology available. These new ones are on par with what was there before and where we are presently technologically. There are countless Supertalls worldwide that equal these. Now If they had been half again as high and used materials and design which had never before been seen, you would have the impact on today's skyline that the originals had on the world of 1972.

[animatedmartian]

By david_levin


By dentarg


By Solandria


By Solandria

I particularly like the helicopter shots.

[Onn]

Ready or not, here it comes!

[djlx2]

It's beautiful.

[Fabb]

April 16

[pico44]

Originally Posted by Traynor

While it was a good read and nicely composed prose, it was also hyperbolic, inspirational, American-centric boosterism. It may all be true and actual sentiments for residents of New York and partially true for the rest of the United States but for the rest of the world it will most likely not think about buildings or architecture when looking back historically at 9/11. It will most likely be viewed as a turning point in how the world works and it's loss of innocence.

This a nice complex and any city would be proud to have it, but the critics have a point about its impact.

The original was on twice the scale to its surroundings and ahead of its time for the technology available. These new ones are on par with what was there before and where we are presently technologically. There are countless Supertalls worldwide that equal these. Now If they had been half again as high and used materials and design which had never before been seen, you would have the impact on today's skyline that the originals had on the world of 1972.

So you're saying we should have constructed something without the slightest concern for commercial viability? And I assume, without any concern for what was there before? And when you say there are so many towers out there that equal these, are you complaining because there are taller towers out there; or because the architecture is uninspired? Regardless I say no, no, who cares and no.