Quote:
Originally Posted by Alliance
Not to mention, when WTC 1 and 2 were built...I believe there was a lot of outrage over how hideous the designs were.
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Not at first. They were originally unveiled to the public in the middle of the 1960's, during the pinnacle of Minimalism. It was only later, when they were almost done and the taste-du-jour had changed where they lambasted.
Ada Louise Huxtable wrote a article for the NY Times practically gushing over Yamasaki's ability to design a massive building complex, yet retain a sense of intimacy. Less than a decade later Huxtable wrote the oft-quoted line of "These are big buildings, but they are not great architecture."
Ultimately, critics hated the complex. It was too detailed for the modernists, and too basic for the traditionalists. It's unique Gothic-Modernist design didn't fit into any school neatly, so it became an architectural anathema. With the new urbanist movement, its superblock was widely criticized for cutting off the neighborhoods (some of which would not have even existed had it not been from the excavation of said super block) from each other, and that the WTC was essentially designed as a world unto itself, with people riding into it by train and never leaving until it was time to clock out and go home. Though that argument ignores the fact that prior to the WTC, there wasn't much to see or do in the immediate vicinity of the Trade Center.