DOCSLIB.ORG

Remember, Rebuild, and Renew”

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Remember, Rebuild, and Renew” “REMEMBER, REBUILD, AND RENEW”: CONSTRUCTING AMERICA’S COLLECTIVE IDENTITY AND THE NEW WORLD TRADE CENTER SITE IN NEW YORK CITY _______________ A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of San Diego State University _______________ In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts in Rhetoric and Writing Studies _______________ by Courtney Michelle Jue Fall 2010 iii Copyright © 2010 by Courtney Michelle Jue All Rights Reserved iv ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS “Remember, Rebuild, and Renew”: Constructing America’s Collective Identity and the New World Trade Center Site in New York City by Courtney Michelle Jue Master of Arts in Rhetoric and Writing Studies San Diego State University, 2010 The events of September 11th served as a nation-wide and globally reaching, tragedy. The attacks acted as symbolic threats, challenging American identity as symbolized in the WTC’s, representing trade and American economic policy; the Pentagon representing the American military; and an attempted attack on the White House, a symbol of American government, and more specifically, democracy. As the destruction represented in the debris at Ground Zero is cleared away, and new buildings arise, the very act of building and creation acts as a symbolic representation of the American identity. It asks the question: how do we remember, rebuild and renew this space post 9/11? This study will analyze of rhetorical use of space and the discourse surrounding the WTC redevelopment to inform the study of how the two buildings at the WTC site: the Freedom Tower, or One World Trade Center, and the September 11th Memorial, communicate aspects of American national identity construction. v TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................................. iv LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................................. vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................................................................... vii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION .........................................................................................................1 2 REMEMBERING AT GROUND ZERO: THE VOICES OF THE 9/11 MEMORIAL ..................................................................................................................5 3 RENEWING AT GROUND ZERO: THE FREEDOM TOWER ...............................16 4 VERNACULAR CRITIQUE AT THE WTC SITE ....................................................22 5 CONCLUSION: THE DIALECTIC OF RECONSTITUTION AT GROUND ZERO ...........................................................................................................................27 REFERENCES ........................................................................................................................32 vi LIST OF FIGURES PAGE Figure 1. Reflecting Absence: Aerial View of the 9/11 Memorial. ...........................................6 Figure 2. North Pool Sectional View. ........................................................................................7 Figure 3. Completing the Vision. .............................................................................................18 vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Thank you so much to my thesis committee whose flexibility, understanding, and encouragement made this thesis process possible. My thanks go especially to Dr. Ornatowski, for his tireless dedication to the growth of all of observations and conclusions made within this work. Thank you to Dr. Boyd and Dr. Carruthers for your guidance and willingness to work with the pressure of tight deadlines. Thanks to my friends and family for your support in keeping me on task and working responsibly. Special thanks to my parents for intially encouraging me to look into graduate school and the possibilities it had to offer. To all of the professors at SDSU in the Rhetoric and Writing Department, thank you for opening my eyes, ears, and mind to the infinite possibilities of “language.” 1 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION In spring 1946, a year after the conclusion of World War II, an idea occurred to William Coblenz, assistant director for Public Information (a division of the Justice Department) after a visit to the National Archives. During a lunch break, Coblenz visited an exhibit that showcased Nazi documents on the inner workings of Fascism juxtaposed next to American charters of liberty and freedom just recently retrieved from storage. Inspired by the eloquence of the contrast between the documents, Coblenz decided to propose a “traveling exhibition of the German and American documents” so that all Americans would get the chance to see them. The idea was enthusiastically welcomed by the Justice Department, headed by Attorney General Tom Clark (Fischer). A year later, on September 17, 1947, a specially built train left Philadelphia for a two- year trip around the United States, the longest train journey in American history. On board were 126 documents comprising the Anglo-American heritage of “freedom,” from the Magna Carta to the Declaration of Independence and the United Nations Charter; there were also flags from the major battlefields of the Pacific War. The train was lead by a “streamlined locomotive . painted glossy white, with stripes of red, white, and blue from head to tail, and a name in gold letters three feet high: FREEDOM TRAIN’” (Fischer 567). At the time, America was recovering from the aftermath of WWII, with thousands of GIs returning home (including members of racial minorities for whom common service at the front made it impossible to simply reenter former social roles), changed roles for women, economic changes that came with the New Deal, and a new global power and identity for the 2 United States. The “Freedom Train” was intended to re-unify the country around a renewed sense of collective purpose and thus strengthen the foundations of collective identity, “to reestablish,” in the words of Attorney General Clark, “the common ground of all Americans” and “to blend our various groups into one American family” (qtd. in Fischer 569). Clark worried that “young Americans were losing touch with the founding principles of liberty and freedom, at a historic moment of a great test by ‘fascism, communism, or the various degrees of socialism’” (Fischer 568). In assembling the documents exhibited on the train, efforts were made to avoid controversy and to build consensus, to demonstrate, in the words of Barney Balaban, President of Paramount Studies--one of the many media and PR executives involved in this project of “selling America to Americans” (Clark’s phrase)--“the essential unity of the American system” (qtd. in Fischer 569). The “Freedom Train” represents a significant instance of what John Bodnar, in the title of his book on public memory and patriotism in the twentieth century, referred to as Remaking America. This essay explores a current instance of such symbolic remaking: the rebuilding of Ground Zero, the World Trade Center site in New York City. Like the “Freedom Train,” this site represents a space of renegotiation and reconstitution of American identity around a set of fundamental values at a time of national and global transition following the collective shock of the 9/11 attacks, the continuing war in the Middle East and the controversies surrounding it, changes in America’s global image, anxieties concerning the changing patterns of immigration (especially immigration from the Middle East and North Africa following America’s commitments in the region), and the election of the first African-American president—to mention just a few factors that appear to play themselves out in the debates surrounding the reconstruction of Ground Zero. 3 While the World Trade Center towers themselves had always been invested with symbolic meaning (which is why they were targeted), the tragedy of their dramatic and public destruction (including over 3000 lives lost) magnified the symbolic potential of the site and thus the rhetorical potential of any discourse pertaining to its reconstruction. As Joseph Tuman notes, terrorism itself is to a significant extent a “rhetorical” phenomenon; its political value lies in the public reactions it seeks rather than the material destruction it accomplishes. The attacks of 9/11 were intended as a “message” from the terrorists to the American government and public and were received as such; the reconstruction of the site thus becomes America’s response directed at both the domestic and global audiences (including the perpetrators). As Tuman suggests, the 9/11 attacks were an “inherently rhetorical” act (which does not diminish but magnifies their horror) that introduced a powerful new symbol with a “serious political meaning” into American public space (104). The magnification of the symbolic meaning of the WTC site results from its recontextualization: from the context of New York City (as a synecdochic space, New York City represents America’s cosmopolitan makeup as well as an epicenter of national/international business, trade, fashion, and media) to that of a global contest of values--a recontextualization that emerges in the controversies surrounding the reconstruction. If, as Tuman and many other scholars have already noted, architecture is to a significant extent also rhetoric (see, for instance, Ackerman; Atkinson and Cosgrove; Stuart), the site itself, in its still bare “silence,” is already powerfully so, and anything constructed on it
Load more

Recommended publications
  • YALE ARCHITECTURE FALL 2011 Constructs Yale Architecture
    1 CONSTRUCTS YALE ARCHITECTURE FALL 2011 Constructs Yale Architecture Fall 2011 Contents “Permanent Change” symposium review by Brennan Buck 2 David Chipperfield in Conversation Anne Tyng: Inhabiting Geometry 4 Grafton Architecture: Shelley McNamara exhibition review by Alicia Imperiale and Yvonne Farrell in Conversation New Users Group at Yale by David 6 Agents of Change: Geoff Shearcroft and Sadighian and Daniel Bozhkov Daisy Froud in Conversation Machu Picchu Artifacts 7 Kevin Roche: Architecture as 18 Book Reviews: Environment exhibition review by No More Play review by Andrew Lyon Nicholas Adams Architecture in Uniform review by 8 “Thinking Big” symposium review by Jennifer Leung Jacob Reidel Neo-avant-garde and Postmodern 10 “Middle Ground/Middle East: Religious review by Enrique Ramirez Sites in Urban Contexts” symposium Pride in Modesty review by Britt Eversole review by Erene Rafik Morcos 20 Spring 2011 Lectures 11 Commentaries by Karla Britton and 22 Spring 2011 Advanced Studios Michael J. Crosbie 23 Yale School of Architecture Books 12 Yale’s MED Symposium and Fab Lab 24 Faculty News 13 Fall 2011 Exhibitions: Yale Urban Ecology and Design Lab Ceci n’est pas une reverie: In Praise of the Obsolete by Olympia Kazi The Architecture of Stanley Tigerman 26 Alumni News Gwathmey Siegel: Inspiration and New York Dozen review by John Hill Transformation See Yourself Sensing by Madeline 16 In The Field: Schwartzman Jugaad Urbanism exhibition review by Tributes to Douglas Garofalo by Stanley Cynthia Barton Tigerman and Ed Mitchell 2 CONSTRUCTS YALE ARCHITECTURE FALL 2011 David Chipperfield David Chipperfield Architects, Neues Museum, façade, Berlin, Germany 1997–2009.
    [Show full text]
  • CTBUH Technical Paper
    CTBUH Technical Paper http://technicalpapers.ctbuh.org Subject: Other Paper Title: Talking Tall: The Global Impact of 9/11 Author(s): Klerks, J. Affiliation(s): CTBUH Publication Date: 2011 Original Publication: CTBUH Journal 2011 Issue III Paper Type: 1. Book chapter/Part chapter 2. Journal paper 3. Conference proceeding 4. Unpublished conference paper 5. Magazine article 6. Unpublished © Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat/Author(s) CTBUH Journal International Journal on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat Tall buildings: design, construction and operation | 2011 Issue III Special Edition World Trade Center: Ten Years On Inside Case Study: One World Trade Center, New York News and Events 36 Challenging Attitudes on 14 “While, in an era of supertall buildings, big of new development. The new World Trade Bridging over the tracks was certainly an Center Transportation Hub alone will occupy engineering challenge. “We used state-of-the- numbers are the norm, the numbers at One 74,300 square meters (800,000 square feet) to art methods of analysis in order to design one Codes and Safety serve 250,000 pedestrians every day. Broad of the primary shear walls that extends all the World Trade are truly staggering. But the real concourses (see Figure 2) will connect Tower way up the tower and is being transferred at One to the hub’s PATH services, 12 subway its base to clear the PATH train lines that are 02 This Issue story of One World Trade Center is the lines, the new Fulton Street Transit Center, the crossing it,” explains Yoram Eilon, vice Kenneth Lewis Nicholas Holt World Financial Center and Winter Garden, a president at WSP Cantor Seinuk, the structural innovative solutions sought for the ferry terminal, underground parking, and retail engineers for the project.
    [Show full text]
  • Public Law 111–347—Jan
    PUBLIC LAW 111–347—JAN. 2, 2011 124 STAT. 3623 Public Law 111–347 111th Congress An Act To amend the Public Health Service Act to extend and improve protections and services to individuals directly impacted by the terrorist attack in New York Jan. 2, 2011 City on September 11, 2001, and for other purposes. [H.R. 847] Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, James Zadroga 9/11 Health and SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE; TABLE OF CONTENTS. Compensation (a) SHORT TITLE.—This Act may be cited as the ‘‘James Zadroga Act of 2010. 9/11 Health and Compensation Act of 2010’’. 42 USC 201 note. (b) TABLE OF CONTENTS.—The table of contents of this Act is as follows: Sec. 1. Short title; table of contents. TITLE I—WORLD TRADE CENTER HEALTH PROGRAM Sec. 101. World Trade Center Health Program. ‘‘TITLE XXXIII—WORLD TRADE CENTER HEALTH PROGRAM ‘‘Subtitle A—Establishment of Program; Advisory Committee ‘‘Sec. 3301. Establishment of World Trade Center Health Program. ‘‘Sec. 3302. WTC Health Program Scientific/Technical Advisory Committee; WTC Health Program Steering Committees. ‘‘Sec. 3303. Education and outreach. ‘‘Sec. 3304. Uniform data collection and analysis. ‘‘Sec. 3305. Clinical Centers of Excellence and Data Centers. ‘‘Sec. 3306. Definitions. ‘‘Subtitle B—Program of Monitoring, Initial Health Evaluations, and Treatment ‘‘PART 1—WTC RESPONDERS ‘‘Sec. 3311. Identification of WTC responders and provision of WTC-related monitoring services. ‘‘Sec. 3312. Treatment of enrolled WTC responders for WTC-related health con- ditions. ‘‘Sec. 3313. National arrangement for benefits for eligible individuals outside New York.
    [Show full text]
  • Title:​ Never Forget: Ground Zero, Park51, and Constitutive Rhetorics
    Title:​ Never Forget: Ground Zero, Park51, and Constitutive Rhetorics Author:​ Tamara Issak Issue:​ 3 Publication Date:​ November 2020 Stable URL: http://constell8cr.com/issue-3/never-forget-ground-zero-park51-and-constitutive-rh etorics/ constellations a cultural rhetorics publishing space Never Forget: Ground Zero, Park51, and Constitutive Rhetorics Tamara Issak, St. John’s University Introduction It was the summer of 2010 when the story of Park51 exploded in the news. Day after day, media coverage focused on the proposal to create a center for Muslim and interfaith worship and recreational activities in Lower Manhattan. The space envisioned for Park51 was a vacant department store which was damaged on September 11, 2001. Eventually, it was sold to Sharif El-Gamal, a Manhattan realtor and developer, in July of 2009. El-Gamal intended to use this space to build a community center open to the general public, which would feature a performing arts center, swimming pool, fitness center, basketball court, an auditorium, a childcare center, and many other amenities along with a Muslim prayer space/mosque. Despite the approval for construction by a Manhattan community board, the site became a battleground and the project was hotly debated. It has been over ten years since the uproar over Park51, and it is important to revisit the event as it has continued significance and impact today. The main argument against the construction of the community center and mosque was its proximity to Ground Zero. Opponents to Park51 argued that the construction of a mosque so close to Ground Zero was offensive and insensitive because the 9/11 attackers were associated with Islam (see fig.
    [Show full text]
  • Rebuilding the Trade Center
    Rebuilding the Trade Center An Interview with Larry A. Silverstein, President and Chief Executive Offi cer, Silverstein Properties, Inc. EDITORS’ NOTE In July 2001, Larry The progress at the Trade Center Silverstein completed the largest real site for many years was very slow. I estate transaction in New York his- was frustrated because I was able to tory when he signed a 99-year lease build 7 World Trade Center in a four- on the 10.6-million-square-foot World year time frame. Trade Center for $3.25 billion only to We went into the ground in 2002, see it destroyed in terrorist attacks six and by 2006, we fi nished it after every- weeks later on September 11, 2001. body had predicted that the building He is currently rebuilding the offi ce would never succeed. We fi nanced it component of the World Trade Center for 40 years. We leased it and today, site, a $7-billion project. Silverstein it’s over 90 percent rented. The build- owns and manages 120 Broadway, ing has been enormously successful. tenancies that have the capacity of occupying 120 Wall Street, 529 Fifth Avenue, Larry A. Silverstein (above); The sad thing is that with the bal- its entirety. So that is gratifying, especially since and 570 Seventh Avenue. In 2008, the World Trade Center ance of the site, we could have done that building is based upon the need of a tenant. Silverstein announced an agree- rendering (right) what we did on 7 if given the opportu- We have the same level of interest in Tower ment with Four Seasons Hotels and nity to do so.
    [Show full text]
  • Highlights of What We Will Be Doing in NYC
    “Learning by Experience” LEGACIES OF NEW YORK: The MUNDO Fall Break Experience 2019 Highlights of what we will be doing in NYC John's of Times Square has been voted one of New York's best pizzas because of its unique characteristics. All pizzas are made to order in one of our four coal-fired brick ovens and like a cast iron pan, our ovens season with age, making no two pizzas the same. The 800 degree coal fired ovens have no thermostats to control heat and are operated by our pizza men who have gone through months of extensive training. We pride ourselves on our fresh ingredients and incomparable recipes, making our pizzas second to none. The National September 11 Memorial & Museum (also known as the 9/11 Memorial & Museum) is a memorial and museum in New York City commemorating the September 11, 2001 attacks, which killed 2,977 people, and the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, which killed six.[4] The memorial is located at the World Trade Center site, the former location of the Twin Towers that were destroyed during the September 11 attacks. It is operated by a non-profit institution whose mission is to raise funds for, program, and operate the memorial and museum at the World Trade Center site. A memorial was planned in the immediate aftermath of the attacks and destruction of the World Trade Center for the victims and those involved in rescue and recovery operations.[5] The winner of the World Trade Center Site Memorial Competition was Israeli-American architect Michael Arad of Handel Architects, a New York- and San Francisco-based firm.
    [Show full text]
  • Newsletter of Architecture E Summer/Fallc2004h R I 5 C a T6 7
    www.coa.gatech.edu Collegenewsletter of Architecture e summer/fallc2004h r i 5 c a t6 7 ARCHITECTURE ARTS AND TECHNOLOGY/MUSIC BUILDING CONSTRUCTION CITY AND REGIONAL PLANNING CONTINUING EDUCATION INDUSTRIAL DESIGN PH.D. PROGRAM 8 9 QQE 10 Q E q e Letter from the Dean World Trade Center Memorial Competition, Clearly, international immersion of our stu- while another, Hawa Meskinyar, from dents is regarded as an important goal for Afghanistan returned to her home country both the Institute and the College, but why? and founded a humanitarian organization First, this experience is absolutely critical to e committed to helping women and children in the diversity of knowledge we desire for our Afghanistan find their way toward independ- students. This emphasis also has very practical ence. Other of our graduates, such as Mona importance due to the globalization of design, As can be seen in several stories of this El-Mousfy and Samia Rab are on the faculty construction and planning practice and the newsletter issue, the international thrusts of in the School of Architecture and Design at need for our graduates to be competitive in the College are clearlyu evident, involving stu- the American University of Sharjah in the this practice. But it is also important for dents, faculty and alumni. Recent interna- UAE, and another, Mohamed Bechir Kenzari, Georgia Tech and other major research uni- tional engagements of our faculty and stu- is winnere of the 2003 Outstanding Article of versities to continue its long-standing practice dents are quite diverse: the Year from the Association of Collegiate of educating future leaders and professional c• Ecuador –t the work of Professors Ellen Schools of Architecture and is on the faculty experts in the built environment in countries Dunham-Jones, Michael Gamble and Randy of the School of Architectural Engineering at throughout the world.
    [Show full text]
  • True to the City's Teeming Nature, a New Breed of Multi-Family High Rises
    BY MEI ANNE FOO MAY 14, 2016 True to the city’s teeming nature, a new breed of multi-family high rises is fast cropping up around New York – changing the face of this famous urban jungle forever. New York will always be known as the land of many towers. From early iconic Art Deco splendours such as the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building, to the newest symbol of resilience found in the One World Trade Center, there is no other city that can top the Big Apple’s supreme skyline. Except itself. Tall projects have been proposed and built in sizeable numbers over recent years. The unprecedented boom has been mostly marked by a rise in tall luxury residential constructions, where prior to the completion of One57 in 2014, there were less than a handful of super-tall skyscrapers in New York. Now, there are four being developed along the same street as One57 alone. Billionaire.com picks the city’s most outstanding multi-family high rises on the concrete horizon. 111 Murray Street This luxury residential tower developed by Fisher Brothers and Witkoff will soon soar some 800ft above Manhattan’s Tribeca neighborhood. Renderings of the condominium showcase a curved rectangular silhouette that looks almost round, slightly unfolding at the highest floors like a flared glass. The modern design is from Kohn Pedersen Fox. An A-team of visionaries has also been roped in for the project, including David Mann for it residence interiors; David Rockwell for amenities and public spaces and Edmund Hollander for landscape architecture.
    [Show full text]
  • Rooted in Rhetoric Volume 5
    Table of Contents Foreword 4 Introduction 6 Reading Response Georgia DeFehr (Counter)Archiving Atrocity Through Comics Journalism: A Response to Hillary L. Chute’s “History and the Visible in Joe Sacco” 7 Textual Analysis Autumn Sfatcos Shadowed Truth: An Ideological Analysis of the White Saviour Complex in The Help 13 Elaine Ries The Environment, the Economy, and the Consequences of the Alberta Tar Sands 25 Giordana Curatolo Critiquing Representations of Postpartum Depression in the Media: A Case Study 33 Sharee Hochman Sandy Hook Promise OrganiZation’s Back to School Advertisement: How the American Identity Limits Moral Indignation 39 Critique Maddalena Nowosad Disrupting Hegemony: Carnivalesque and Feminist Practices at The Edge Skatepark 48 1 Rachel Ferstl A Metaphoric Critique on Michael Arad and Peter Walker’s 9/11 Memorial: Reflecting Absence 65 Manifesto Valerie Nyamori The Red Wave Manifesto Proposal 77 Research Essay Cassidy Rempel #Clean, Healthy, Perfect: The Image-Text Relationship of Orthorexia-Triggering Content on Instagram 80 Jocelyn Shymko The Powerful Presence of Plants- FertiliZing the Mind with Mental Enhancement 92 Jocelyn Shymko Politics on Thin Ice 99 Leia Patterson The IdealiZation of Virtue: A Generic Description of Canadian War Memorials 107 Lily O’Donnel Bedroom Pop: How Algorithms Created a Genre 116 Thomas Dickson Wendy and Lucy: Between Neorealism and Slow Cinema 120 2 Personal Narrative Rebecca Michaella Daylo A Story of Relocating to Another Country 134 Ziyin Wang Crossing Racial and Cultural Lines with Sincerity 138 Princess Tecson Mandap The Flower that Bloomed in my House 141 3 Foreword It is 2020. Many of us have found ourselves in a moment of complete pause.
    [Show full text]
  • Institutional Backgrounder
    INSTITUTIONAL BACKGROUNDER This document serves as an informational tool for members of the media who are interested in the National September 11 Memorial & Museum. Those looking for access to the Memorial and Museum are encouraged to visit the online media center. Please direct specific media inquiries to [email protected]. ESSENTIAL MEDIA BRIEFING • There are 2,983 names on the 9/11 Memorial, honoring the 2,977 people killed at the three attack sites on September 11, 2001 and the six people killed in the February 26, 1993 bombing at the World Trade Center. • The 9/11 attacks killed 2,977 people. 2,753 people were killed in New York, 184 people were killed at the Pentagon and 40 people were killed on Flight 93. • The February 26, 1993 bombing killed 6 people at the World Trade Center. • The largest loss of life of rescue personnel in American history occurred on September 11, 2001. 343 FDNY firefighters, along with 37 Port Authority Police Department officers and 23 New York Police Department officers, were killed. In total, 441 first responders representing over 30 agencies died on 9/11. • The Memorial pools stand in the footprints of the Twin Towers. Each pool is one acre in size. There are 413 swamp white oak trees on the Memorial plaza, and one callery pear tree known as the Survivor Tree. • The 9/11 Memorial Glade is located in the southwest corner of the Memorial. The Glade is dedicated to all who are sick or have died as a result of exposure to toxins and hazards in the aftermath of 9/11 as well as those who responded with courage and bravery.
    [Show full text]
  • Technological Advances and Trends in Modern High-Rise Buildings
    buildings Article Technological Advances and Trends in Modern High-Rise Buildings Jerzy Szolomicki 1,* and Hanna Golasz-Szolomicka 2 1 Faculty of Civil Engineering, Wroclaw University of Science and Technology, 50-370 Wroclaw, Poland 2 Faculty of Architecture, Wroclaw University of Science and Technology, 50-370 Wroclaw, Poland * Correspondence: [email protected]; Tel.: +48-505-995-008 Received: 29 July 2019; Accepted: 22 August 2019; Published: 26 August 2019 Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to provide structural and architectural technological solutions applied in the construction of high-rise buildings, and present the possibilities of technological evolution in this field. Tall buildings always have relied on technological innovations in engineering and scientific progress. New technological developments have been continuously taking place in the world. It is closely linked to the search for efficient construction materials that enable buildings to be constructed higher, faster and safer. This paper presents a survey of the main technological advancements on the example of selected tall buildings erected in the last decade, with an emphasis on geometrical form, the structural system, sophisticated damping systems, sustainability, etc. The famous architectural studios (e.g., for Skidmore, Owings and Merill, Nikhen Sekkei, RMJM, Atkins and WOHA) that specialize, among others, in the designing of skyscrapers have played a major role in the development of technological ideas and architectural forms for such extraordinary engineering structures. Among their completed projects, there are examples of high-rise buildings that set a precedent for future development. Keywords: high-rise buildings; development; geometrical forms; structural system; advanced materials; damping systems; sustainability 1.
    [Show full text]
  • Libeskind's Jewish Museum Berlin
    Encountering empty architecture: Libeskind’s Jewish Museum Berlin Henrik Reeh Preamble In Art Is Not What You Think It Is, Claire Farago and Donald Preziosi observe how the architecture of contemporary museums inspires active relationships between exhibitions and visitors.1 Referring to the 2006 Denver Art Museum by Daniel Libeskind, they show the potentials germinating in a particular building. When artists and curators are invited to dialog with the spaces of this museum, situations of art-in-architecture may occur which go beyond the ordinary confrontation of exhibitions and spectatorship, works and visitors. Libeskind’s museum is no neutral frame in the modernist tradition of the white cube, but a heterogeneous spatiality. These considerations by Farago and Preziosi recall the encounter with earlier museums by Libeskind. Decisive experiences particularly date back to the year 1999 when his Jewish Museum Berlin was complete as a building, long before being inaugurated as an exhibition hall in 2001. Open to the public for guided tours in the meantime, the empty museum was visited by several hundred thousand people who turned a peripheral frame of future exhibitions into the center of their sensory and mental attention. Yet, the Libeskind building was less an object of contemplation than the occasion for an intense exploration of and in space. Confirming modernity’s close connection between exhibition and architecture, Libeskind’s Jewish Museum Berlin unfolds as a strangely dynamic and fragmented process, the moments of which call for elaboration and reflection. I. Architecture/exhibition Throughout modernity, exhibitions and architecture develop in a remarkably close relationship to one another.
    [Show full text]