It's not entirely clear if the twin skyscrapers were a symbol of New York and America before 9/11. The view of Manhattan from the Hudson with two towers was 100% calendar and postcard, but the Statue of Liberty seemed to be the symbol of America. However, after the terrorist attack, undoubtedly, it was they who acquired the status of the main national symbol.
And, accordingly, after the attack, who just did not say that the skyscrapers will be restored. From ordinary Americans to Mayor Giuliani and President Bush. Reconstruction seemed the only possible response to the Islamic terrorist attack. Except, of course, the Afghan and Iraqi operations. To us, in Russia, this seemed especially obvious, because we had just restored the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. While we rarely agree with the Americans, there is reason to believe that they thought the same way. At least, such an impression is formed according to the results of Internet polls: after the tragedy, up to 90% of voters spoke in favor of restoration.
Recovery is the tried and tested path. Nothing really exploded in America before September 11, but Europe has accumulated a lot of experience. Two world wars, restored Warsaw and the center of Frankfurt, Peterhof and Pavlovsk, it would seem, clearly proved that nothing could be better. Recovery allows you to achieve two effects at once. On the one hand (external), it is a tribute to the memory of the dead, a tribute to the continuity of generations. We cannot be deprived of our history, we are restoring what was lost. On the other (internal), it creates a powerful therapeutic effect. After all, in the end everything turns out as it was, that is, it turns out that nothing seems to have happened. The way to preserve memory is to smooth it out, to destroy an unpleasant event. We, for example, received the effect of not demolishing the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, its always happy stay in its place. The Americans were supposed to get the effect of not destroying the Twin Towers, the lack of horror of America's insecurity.
Imagine that in 1994, when Yuri Luzhkov decided to restore the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, a competition for the best building would be held and instead of the Cathedral of Konstantin Ton they would suggest building some other one. A project that - no, would be no better than Ton's; you can imagine many of them - but one that would have convinced everyone that it is not worth repeating the old thing simply could not be.
From this it is clear what kind of revolution the Americans made. They didn't give up the Yamasaki building - they broke the public stereotype. It turned out that the new complex is much better than the restored old one. This is so unusual that you don't even quite understand what kind of novelty bribed them. What kind of PR scheme was built in order for citizens to agree with this conclusion.
Events developed as follows. After the explosions, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC) was formed. It included representatives from the municipal government, insurance companies and the building owner, Larry Silverstein. The corporation chose the traditional path of American development - it prepared an urban reconstruction plan: the main volumes, the main functions of the complex without developing the image of buildings (in Russia, this level of design corresponds to the urban planning task). In June of this year, six of these urban planning assignments were presented to the public.
They caused a flurry of criticism. The corporation was reproached for developing this project as an ordinary development project, that the main thing for it was a business plan, that neither the memorial nor the cultural nature of the place was taken into account, that a park, a temple, a music hall, a library were needed (whatever they wanted). In general, it turned out that the corporation as a whole is absolutely incompetent in resolving this issue.
Two people from different sides took the lead in this critical process. Architectural columnist for The New York Times Herbert Muschamp launched an entire campaign against the LMDC actions, gathered a group of influential architects (Richard Meyer, Stephen Hall, Peter Eisenman) and urged them to write their own renovation project. The architects proposed to take part of West Street, one of the main thoroughfares of Manhattan, into the tunnel, and turn the resulting area into a memorial boulevard, along which the buildings of all the architectural stars of the world, including their own, would be lined up.
The second major critic was gallerist Max Protetsch, owner of the only gallery in New York that has been selling architectural graphics for many years. (Because of this, the owner is familiar with many architectural stars.) He invited all his friends to draw their own WTC images. The resulting drawings he exhibited in his gallery as a visible opposition to the poverty of the creative possibilities of the LMDC. Later they formed the basis of the US exposition at the Venice Architecture Biennale.
It is not surprising that this criticism has arisen - any major project always evokes criticism. It's amazing that it worked. It is clear that this is impossible in Russia, but it seems that this has not happened anywhere in the world. Any major project - be it the construction of the Canary Warf in London, skyscrapers in Frankfurt, the City in Moscow - always adheres to one criticism position: the dog barks, the caravan moves on. Here LMDC suddenly made a brilliant PR move. She admitted - yes, indeed, we are professionals in the field of business, but here the project is special, memorial, cultural, here we do not understand anything, and let cultural people, experts in the field of architecture and artistic images, decide for themselves what and how it should be. Instead of prepared urban planning tasks, a competition of ideas was announced, in which only the general parameters of areas and functions were specified (memorial square - so much, business - so much, culture - so much). And now six finalists of the competition have been selected.
Radical critics everywhere act in a similar way: they oppose one big and untwisted one to another big and untwisted one. In this case, architectural stars were opposed to the idea of restoration. The finalists of the competition are entirely world-renowned architects, and preference was clearly given to those groups where several world names united together. It is especially interesting for Russia that the seventh rated architect who did not get two votes to enter the world architectural elite was Eric Moss, whom we gave a ride with the Mariinsky Theater project.
The designs of some of the stars are known from the Protch Gallery exhibition. But these are preliminary projects, and not the result that they will present to the competition. The rest of the architects carefully conceal their designs. Nevertheless, from their previous work, one can quite clearly imagine what options the future WTC has.
We can say that two concepts are competing. One is gigantic, relatively simple in form, respectable modernism. This is Sir Norman Foster, this is the SOM bureau that built skyscrapers in Canary Warf in London, this is Richard Meyer and Stephen Hall, this is Raphael Vinoli. Differences here are possible in materials, in more or less enthusiasm for high-tech effects, but not in the image as a whole - these will be buildings that amaze in size and funds invested in them.
The second concept is presented by Daniel Libeskind and the United Architects Group with Greg Lynn. The first is a master of Holocaust museums, a gloomy and tragic architect, everything usually falls down with him, hangs terribly and frighteningly breaks. In the Max Protch Gallery, he gave a drawing of skyscrapers standing over Manhattan in a position that excludes any possibility of equilibrium. The second is a master of the virtual world, his buildings turn into guts, wriggling worms and obscene biological heaps. These architects amaze with the image of a mysterious future and affect not so much the subconscious sense of respect for wealth, but the subconscious expectation of a miracle coming from modern technology, albeit a scary one.
What America will choose remains a question. If we move on, according to the logic of experts, cultural and artistic, then, undoubtedly, the winner will be Lynn or Libeskind: here the more radical, the better. If the search for a compromise begins between the tastes of artistic radicals and the image of big American business, then the likely winners are Norman Foster or COM. But this is already the next stage of the drama.
And in fact, it is even less interesting than what has already happened. America is a model for the entire Western world; The WTC is a symbol not only of the United States, but of the entire modern Western civilization. At least that was the case immediately after 9/11. And now it turns out that now for this civilization it is not the identity with itself that is important, not the return to the lost symbols, but, on the contrary, the belief that the new ones will be better than the old ones.
This is the end of the era of recovery. It began with the reconstruction of the bell tower of San Marco, which collapsed in 1911 in Venice, and ended with the reconstruction of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow in 2000. It's nice, because the era ended on us. And they will no longer restore it - they will call architectural stars to create new symbols.
