Quote:
Originally Posted by Bill Ditnow
I agree that the intent of the spire is to evoke a torch or beacon, even if the overall design, as conceived anew by Childs, was intended as a symbolic allusion
to the Washington Monument and not the Statue of Liberty.
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Again, you are confusing the overall design of the
tower with that of the spire.
Quote:
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I doubt very many people will see the toothpick as a torch or beacon.
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It's debatable how many people will see
anything on top of a skyscraper as relative to a beacon or Liberty's torch. That doesn't change what it is.
To me, it's an antenna. But if it's ruled a spire, it's a spire. I don't get to make the call. I think you're right that most people won't care.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MadGnome
Child's original idea was for the building itself to be 2200'. That would have been something to see.
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It varied from 2,100 ft to 2,000 ft. But Libeskind feared it would overwhelm the site plan, and it did not include the mandated spire which was to mark 1,776 ft.
There was a lengthy battle, which eventually led to this great cartoon...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bill Ditnow
It should be remembered that when Childs designed this, he was under a mandate from Silverstein that the occupied portion of the tower be much lower than that of the original
twin towers, because he feared another terror attack. So you can see that the occupied portion of this original Childs proposal is only half as tall as the actual tower.
Childs was trying to go tall without having the whole thing occupied.
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As proposed in the site plan, none of the "occupied" office space was to be much above 1,000 ft. The Freedom Tower was originally supposed to have "sky gardens"
with observatory space within that would be located higher than the office space. However, when Libeskind's site plan was selected, the broadcasters had been planning
their own 2,000 ft tower somewhere around the harbor (varying sites of Jersey City, Bayonne, and Governors Island). It was only after the site plan selection that they
got on board with the new plan at the WTC.
So David Childs was not only designing an office tower, he was also designing a broadcasting tower. He chose the twisting design that in his opinion represented the statue of liberty
in a way different from Libeskinds. He chose to mark the 1,776 ft height not with a spire, but with an observation deck at that height. The antennas for the broadcasters would be above that,
pushing the tower to its 2,000 - 2,100 ft height, while the "building" portion of the tower would reach no more than 1,150 ft.
Enter Libeskind and Governor Pataki, and the mandated spire of 1,776 ft had to be included in the design. David Childs worked various schemes, at both the 2,000 and 1,776 ft heights.
Most looked ridiculous. A quick look back:
Child's original design, if done right, could have invoked Foster's vision in my opinion...
But none of that eventually mattered, as the NYPD forced a complete redesign of the tower, which led to what we now have.
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Holy crap,didn't see that.Chills down my spine.
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