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Originally Posted by fimiak
But it does have an architectural structure height of 2063ft. Why pretend as if it doesn't simply to make the 1WTC more impressive, or to differentiate between masts and antennas? The highest point of a man-made structure is the height of that structure, whether its an office building, an antenna, a mud hut, a deck of cards, etc..its bizarre to measure a structure by anything other than its top point.
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Because the people who build buildings like this want to boast about it's height. They whine and complain that while company A builds a building that's X,XXXft tall to the roof line, B then just adds a mast to the top of their building making it X+1ft tall and thus stealing the coveted title of "tallest" from them.
Like, how about a more "real world" example. The Drake Hotel will rise 1,398ft to it's flat roof with no spire / mast / antenna. That's the tallest roofline in NYC, taller than 1WTC. If we count the spire, then the Drake Hotel will be second tallest. If we don't, it'll be first. That's why they've created different measurement systems.
Pinnacle Height measures to the top of the highest point. Architectural height is what is being debated, and I think most of us agree that the "Spire" on 1WTC should not count in that regard much like how the mast on the Empire State Building isn't counted either.
All in all, there's really no measurement beyond some 100% arbitrary way for this building to be 1,776ft. Of course that doesn't stop Durst from citing that number in every press release and still claiming the title of tallest in the west. In the end, we're just moaning about a useless statistic that has no real impact on the beauty of the building.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NYguy
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I hadn't seen that diagram before. You can really tell it's the exact same mast, they just took away the radome. Seeing this, I can now see why a lot of you think the mast us ugly. It doesn't make sense the way it was constructed. The beacon on top is going to look especially awkward and out of place as it was designed to be the slender tip to a sleek spire, not the awkward diamond shaped balloon that it'll be when it goes up. Also, seeing how the Radome would have covered the mast, it still made sense to mark the height at 1,776 ft (and exclude the lightning rod) because there would have been a more defined structure that ended at that height. The way it's being built it's just a plain boring mast with no special significance to one element over another.
Durst really robbed NYC and the architectural world when he fattened his pockets by cutting out the radome. In a way, it's almost symbolic of this whole new WTC project. A meaningless skeleton that fails to fulfill the legacy it was originally intended to recreate. In the end I think the new WTC complex will be a grouping of pretty buildings (the best of which are just stubs in the ground at this point... lets see how those get ruined as well) but they'll never live up the awe and majesty of the original complex. I, like many I'm sure, loved the twins. That fascination predated 9/11 as I was enamored by them when I first saw them. These new towers don't stir those feelings at all sadly.