Manhattanism: Beyond the Event, the Form of Human Spirit A thesis submitted to the Miami University Honors Program in partial fulfillment of the Requirements for University Honors By Scot Teti 05/2004 Oxford, Ohio ABSTRACT MAHATTANISM: BEYOND THE EVENT, THE FORM OF HUMAN SPIRIT By Scot Teti ‘04 The former World Trade Center site in New York City has come to represent a number of emotional and intellectually charged issues for people across the world. This project is to look critically at the meaning of the World Trade Center past, present, and future with the intent to manifest its evolving meaning into architectural forms. The emphasis of this project is not to use the tools of literary discourse to expose the power of the former and future World Trade Center site but to use the art of design for expression. Architecture has and will continue to be based on visual experience, and it is the intent of this project to maintain this proven continuity of communication for this discipline. Specifically, the project proposes that the former World Trade Center site in New York City become a forum for expression composed of an Expression Forum, a New World University, and an International Media Center. The beginning of the project introduces New York City as a place of advanced culture and social activity created by distinct historic events. New York City’s historic evolution and context has been termed Manhattanism, and has come to be defined and symbolized by the city grid and skyscraper. The city grid had been initially created for an efficient and organized urban layout for development. However, the grid due to its geometric and urbanistic character soon proved to be a driving force in how Manhattanites lived, worked, and built their city. And it had been the skyscraper that Manhattanites became particularly interested in due to its amenable nature to business, competition, and the city grid. The city grid and skyscraper were an ever dominant force at the former World Trade Center and both are reinterpreted in the project’s proposed designs. The proposed design for the former World Trade Center looks to the site’s historic precedence in communication as a driving concept in manipulating the grid and skyscraper. It becomes evident that communication has always been the motivation behind activity on the former World Trade Center site from architecture to even terrorism. This communicative context is understood to be the identity of the site, so the designs proposed here pay a close respect to this character. However, the project looks critically at how communication and expression have been stunted at the site and how they can supersede these obstacles. Ultimately, the final design looks to create a gradient of communicative freedom that allows people to see the extent that society controls expression. ii Manhattanism: Beyond the Event, the Form of Human Spirit By Scot Teti Approved by: ______________________, Advisor (Dr. Sergio L. Sanabria) ______________________, Reader (Gerardo Brown-Manrique) ______________________, Reader (Craig L. Hinrichs) Accepted by: ______________________, Director, University Honors Program v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to begin by thanking the drive, dedication, and true sincerity my advisor Dr. Sergio Sanabria inspired in me throughout the project. The seriousness of the topic had been like none other I have worked with, and I do not believe the respect it deserved could have been achieved without Dr. Sanabria’s understanding and advice. I am also truly indebted to Diane Fellows and her studio for allowing me the opportunity to travel with them to New York during my site visit to Ground Zero and the city of New York. The dialogue I was able to hold with Diane and her students were provocative and contributed significantly to the creation of my program for the site. Throughout the semester I held a number of critiques including the final presentation in December. I would like to thank all of the critiquers who were always more than happy to contribute to the development of this project, they include: my advisor Dr. Sergio Sanabria, Gerardo Brown-Manrique, Craig Hinrichs, Dr. Robert Benson, Linn Song, and Paul Dean. It would be a mistake to not include all of my fellow classmates in the Architecture Department at Miami University in the list of my acknowledgments. Throughout the semester my classmates were always happy to let me bounce ideas off of them and provide me with their own critical feedback. Lastly, I would like to thank my family, particularly my parents, for coming down to observe my final presentation. My parents’ support could always be counted on even when the project appeared to take over all my thoughts. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Text - Manhattanism: Beyond the Event, the Form of Human Spirit…...................………………9-22 References………………………………………………………………..……………...................23-24 Appendices A-E (Selected Outlines of Significant resources)....……….………………………....25-53 Site Pictures……………………………………………...................…….………………………..54-61 Design Development………………………………………………………....................…………62-77 Final Presentation…………………………………………………...................………………….78-84 Expression Forum………………………………………….…………..................……………….85-92 Node 1………………………………………...................…………………………………….....93-101 Node 2………………………………………………………...................……………………...102-107 Node 3……………………………………………………………………..................………....108-113 Housing…………………………………………………………………………...................….114-117 viii 9 MANHATTANISM: BEYOND THE EVENT, THE FORM OF HUMAN SPIRIT An Introduction to New York New York is to a number who know her a contradiction of terms, the embodiment of the profane and righteous. She is the city that has experienced all life could ever throw at humanity. With her everyone else feels confined to follow suit because she knows, she has already experienced, and she is telling you not to even bother. However, despite New York’s brashness and overbearing character, which may be warranted, one cannot help the desire for her embrace. Yes, New York may have already accomplished what only some could imagine, however, she still maintains a human side that makes mistakes and is still struggling like everyone else. A select number in life find this whole condition daunting and are easily turned away. Others see the bigger picture and chose to maintain a respectful distance. Finally, there are those who see this big city as a family member, good or bad, they cannot help but love it; accepting every bit of it knowing full well she may not be as accepting in return. Of course there are other cities in the world that do not carry as much baggage as New York, but then again there is no city quite as full of realistic ecstasy as she. There is no city that could possibly bring you to the heights or absolute lows as some New Yorkers have gone. What is rapacious are not the dizzying heights, because only a small number ever get there, but missing opportunities and watching others succeed at them. The idea of New York can be defined as wholesome, not in the same respect we view a good mother, but in the sense that everything is real that everything anyone tries to experience, create, or discuss you can touch, smell, hear, and see in New York City. 10 The History and Reasoning Behind Manhattan’s Grid and Skyscraper Manhattan can be dated back to the well known history of Henry Hudson’s discovery of the island in 1609 by the Dutch East India Company. However important the role the Dutch played in forming the initial mentality of Manhattanites, the first significant event had been in 1807. It is at this point that Simeon de Witt, Governor Morris, and John Rutherford laid out a grid of 13 x 156 blocks giving Manhattan a total of 2,028 blocks. Rem Koolhaas critiques this event as an example of “shortsightedness of commercial interest” on the part of the planners. The grid provides a landscape that offers the opportunity for efficient and seamless development. On the other hand, Rem Koolhaas would agree, this historic event carried significant influence in shaping the future of those on the island. The significance of the original plan to lay out 2,028 blocks on the island of Manhattan goes well beyond simply the ordering of the site by a systematic structure of streets. The fathers of urban planning for New York were aware of the circles, ovals, and other shapes that could be used to beautify the city but chose against any deviance from a strict utilitarian system. “Manhattan is a utilitarian polemic” (Koolhaas 19). Therefore, the grid should not be taken lightly or simply overlooked as a meaningless bit of information, but rather used as a tool to understand the city and its people. Yes, the grid can be simply viewed as a way to order buildings efficiently. What can be extracted from this mundane element is how the grid was not elaborated upon or reduced by New York’s city planners beyond the two-dimensional map. The grid gives the people of this island a profound way of life. Those who decide to build are challenged to define their own block. The grid does provide a limited choice for the ground plain, obviously, being framed in by the surrounding streets. The grid’s influence ends on this two-dimensional level, and New Yorkers were quick to realize this freedom. “The Grid’s two- dimensional discipline also creates undreamt-of freedom for three-dimensional anarchy. The Grid defines a new balance between control and de-control in which the city can be at the same time ordered 11 and fluid, a metropolis of rigid chaos” (Koolhaas 20). Ultimately, New York’s historic entrails tell a story about a people given a limited fabric. New Yorker’s reaction to this limitation, the urban forest that had sprung upward, is not only revealing of its particular character but of natural human organic behavior. The forest of skyscrapers in New York is misunderstood as simply a continuation of the city’s obsessions with efficiency.