Simple isthe best of all possible worlds here.
I didn't like the sheer banality of this tower in its embryonic form (i.e. vapid ble glass crackerbox with joined-at-the-hip whitewashed monolith). It was for me a bitterly disappointing contirbutionfrom Sr Viñoly given his repoertoire.
But fast-forward to now, and IMO while it is less than what a lot of us were hoping for, it seems that way as if almost on purpose.
As I've suggested before, Vinnoly takes the simplest form a tall building can assume and does a surprisingly great deal with it without changing the shape at all.
This is no exception, to be sure. The (admittedly on my part minimalist) simplistic design here appears as a nod of gracious concession both to the impending presence of 45 Broad, and the visual balance to the Downtown cityscape that 80 South will provide...at least height-wise for now.
Hindsight being 20/20, the height diminution makes sense in light of what I just presented but also because---and think bout it---Wouldn't this tower at it's originally planned height have somehow detracted from the contextual i
n toto dominance that the WTC complex is meant to have in the first place?
At the very least, it would dishonor the Liebeskindian Upward Spiral motif that in the first place the WTC Center was meant to portray in a
truly symbolic manner, i.e. t
rue re-birth and not some kind of shallow, politically charged patriotic gin-up angle.
2¢
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