By Haider Rizvi
NEW YORK, Mar 14 2003 (IPS)

Obsessed with the notion that skyscrapers can reflect a nation’s economic might and glory, the New York City administration last week approved an architectural plan that promises to build the tallest tower in the world on the site of the World Trade Centre, destroyed by the Sep 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

But whether such a plan would be environmentally viable and compatible with the life and aspirations of millions of New Yorkers – about half of them immigrants from all over the world who work for more hours and less wages – is a question that seems to have been overlooked by the government leaders and the urban developers.

Not only Studio Daniel Libeskind, the Germany-based architectural firm that has been chosen to do the job, but all other finalists, also focused on the height. Why?

"This is a big country and we have always liked big things," said Witold Rybczynski, a professor of urbanism at the University of Pennsylvania and author of several books about urban planning.

"There’s absolutely no reason to do this in Manhattan, or anywhere else for that matter," he told National Public Radio a few days after the Sep 11 attacks.

"The fact that you have the world’s tallest building in Kuala Lumpur doesn’t really prove that Kuala Lumpur is the world’s greatest city, because it isn’t."

"Building anything beyond 50 stories is irresponsible," he says. Fowle stopped working on the Conde Nast building after the 48th floor in the Times Square area, believing that going beyond that point would cause "alienation among people from the built environment."

However, the winner of the WTC reconstruction bid does not think so.

"This project is not just an intellectual operation," said Daniel Libeskind. "It has to touch people emotionally, because so much of what is going on in the world is not something that can be rationally analysed."

Libeskind’s scheme is cantered on a void – the space where the WTC Twin Towers stood – surrounded by five skyscrapers. The tallest among them is a staggering 1,776 feet (541 m) with a spike. (The number 1776 represents the year of the birth of the United States). The void symbolises the space, where more than 3,000 people lost their lives in the terrorist attacks.

But for some, the monument becomes a hostage to the powers of the towers of commercial interests.

"There is indeed an enormous difference between structures that embody ‘life’, and those that embody ‘death" – it is just that currently fashionable architects don’t seem to be aware of that difference, or at least how to reflect that in their buildings," wrote Brian Hanson and Nikos Salingaros in the Architectural Record magazine recently, in reference to Libeskind.

Professor Steve Ross, of Columbia University, author of several books and articles on urban environment, seems more concerned about the practical consequences of the Libeskind scheme, though he confesses that he likes the skyline elements.

"The tall tower is neat, and the way the other buildings on the site cast ground shadows is nice, too. But my guess is that the sunken plaza is never going to work right. The climate is only right for being outdoors in New York for about half the year. The ‘bathtub’ walls cannot remain in their natural state, because they are structurally weak and not meant to be exposed."

Ross thinks that people walking from the Wall Street area through the site to get to the financial centre close to the Hudson River will find the sunken plaza an obstacle. "Many of these people would be coming off the train and subway lines."

One distinctive feature of the original version of the Libeskind design was that it had "Gardens of the World" on the 70th floor. The gardens would have been "stacked" in zones with plants from at least five ecosystems – alpine tundra, desert, rainforest, savannah, and temperate deciduous.

But redevelopment officials now say the gardens are no longer part of the final design.

The Libeskind team removed the gardens from the scheme after some critics questioned whether the plan was practical and whether visitors would have liked to visit a sky-high park.

* Tierramérica is a specialised news service (www.tierramerica.net) produced by IPS with the backing of the United Nations Development Programme and the United Nations Environment Programme.

(Haider Rizvi is an IPS correspondent.)

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