Bleeding Edge: "The Trade Center towers were religious too" (p. 338)

[Fiona Shnapple]

At the ribbon cutting for 4 wt, architect Fumihiko Maki used the terms face
and back.



On Monday, November 18, 2013, David Morris wrote:

> Thanks.  But a comment:  buildings can turn their backs.  A perfect
> example is you commercial shopping mall.  Its outside is all "back"
> surrounded by parking lots, inherently ugly, even with billboard sized fake
> fronts marking the entrances and the anchor stores.  The real faces are all
> inside.  The mall exterior is a fake face.
>
> On Monday, November 18, 2013, John Bailey wrote:
>
> What Morris said!
>
> Baudrillard's post-Simulations obsession with turning everything into
> a rich and universal symbol would have made Jung wince and say 'ease
> up, feller.' A building can't turn its back, for pete's sake. Even if
> it did the back would then be the front.
>
> On Tue, Nov 19, 2013 at 10:55 AM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
> > So many things in this brief analysis of WTC towers is incorrect and
> > exposing his ignorance of architecture:
> >
> > 1.  The towers didn't turn their backs on anything.  They had no backs.
> All
> > their faces were identical.  And they were no more faceless than any
> other
> > of their contemporaries.  Most modernist towers of that era and before
> were
> > grids, by nature uniform and and faceless.
> >
> > 2. Neither did they face each other.  They were offset from each other
> on a
> > diagonal.  Thus they maximized the number of faces sent outward, not at
> each
> > other.  In other words they didn't block each other's views.
> >
> > 3.  He is correct to point out that they did all they could to stand out
> and
> > dominate.  That is one of the central features of early and later
> (pre-Pomo)
> > modernist architecture, which was notoriously anti-urban and ant-street.
> > Modernism hated facades lining streets or plazas or squares, all the
> devices
> > of pre-modern architecture to define urban SPACE.  Pre modern urban
> > architecture worked in a collective manner to define public spaces.
>  Modern
> > architecture hated urbanism, seeking to demolish vast areas of urban
> fabric
> > in order to provide an open limitless field in which to display mega
> > objects.  The WTC did its best to do just that in lower Manhattan.  This
> is
> > just plain vanilla modern architecture at a scale that allowed it to
> achieve
> > standard modernist goals.
> >
> > BTW, most architects thought they were crappy architecture.
> >
> > David Morris
> >
> >
> > On Monday, November 18, 2013, Heikki Raudaskoski wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> I never appreciated Baudrillard much to begin with, and his writings on
> >> 9/11 made me appreciate him less, but some parts of his analysis may
> hold
> >> true, like the following points paraphrased by Margaret McNally:
> >>
> >> "The aesthetic twinness and symmetry of the Twin Towers, and their
> >> dominant height above other skyscrapers in the New York City skyline,
> >> signified that the WTC no longer represented competition of corporate
> >> capital among these modern symbols of capitalism in New York City or,
> >> indeed, the world. Rather, it represented western global capital
> >> dominance (Baudrillard, Spirit 38-39). The Towers' faceless facades
> stood
> >> isolated, turning their back on other skyscrapers, and facing one
> another
> >> in a playful, yet somewhat arrogant gesture that both defied modernism,
> >> and signified their self-contained supremacy of global power (40)."
> >>
> >>
> >> http://tinyurl.com/p9hghuz (Please note that clicking this link will
> >> prompt a download of a Word document to your computer.)
> >>
> >>
> >> Heikki
> >>
> >> On Mon, 18 Nov 2013, Paul Mackin wrote:
> >>
> >> > Also, it's the media--TV, radio, and print--that creates that "instant
> >> > history," telling us what we now think even before we think it, or
> >> > might never have thought it. It sells newspapers, as the saying goes.
> >> >
> >> > In a similar case, there's a story-heading this morning in either the
> >> > Times or the Post that reads "America still haunted by JFK
> >> > assassination."  Well, speaking for myself, the things haunting me
> >> > have nothing to do with that 50 year ago sad event.  I suspect it's
> >> > the same for many of the rest of you as well.
> >> >
> >> > P
> >> >
> >> > On Mon, Nov 18, 2013 at 1:48 PM, Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com>
> >> > wrote:
> >> > > I agree with both of you. As a matter of prosaic fact, most of the
> >> > > corporate
> >> > > tenants of the WTC were insurance companies (the largest by square
> >> > > footage a
> >> > > Blue Cross HMO) and a slew of import/export firms and financial
> >> > > intermediaries few of us had ever heard of. They were landmarks and
> >> >
>
>
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