Paul Goldberger, The New Yorker‘s architecture critic, spoke to The Big Think about the rebuilding of Ground Zero. He is not a fan. He calls the office building that’s going up now “sort of OK,” and the rest of the planned structures “better than the average piece of junk on Third Avenue.”
What would he have preferred to see?
I think a great tower would have had a place there. Either a pure tower, just as a symbol, like the Eiffel Tower of the 21st Century, we might say. Or, remembering that the United States is, after all, the birthplace of the skyscraper-a building form that we’ve now given to the world that is now common all around the world-what better place, if we’re looking to show the world that in fact we have not been defeated by this attack, than to come back to this place, in this country, in this time and build the most advanced skyscraper we could possibly imagine. The one that will bring the art of skyscraper design forward yet again.
In the other clips, Goldberger talks about “starchitects,” the upside of the recession, and why green architecture is now kind of boring. Watch the complete interview here.
