Architecture of the New Capitalist Society

Architecture of the New Capitalist Society

INTRODUCTORY THEME

Daniel Libeskind’s winning design for the new World Trade Center takes a sentimental and metaphorical approach. He claims that the completed WTC would become the representation of America’s belief in humanity, its need for individual dignity, and its beliefs in the cooperation of human. Libeskind’s original design focused on restoring the spiritual peak to the New York City and creating an icon that speaks of America’s vitality in the face of danger and her optimism in the aftermath of tragedy. The design considered the city’s neighborhood and residents, rather than simply the economic demands of the commissioners. However, Libeskind’s revised plan that revealed in September 2003 altered his original humanistic vision of creating buildings that respond to the neighborhood, and an environment that will have richness and openness. Pressured by the leaseholder of the WTC site Mr. Silverstein, Libeskind’s new plan added an emphasize on the commercial purpose of the site. The marketability of office and retail spaces has become the major concern of the project.

The new World Trade Center project has stirred a significant amount of debates among authorities and the public since Daniel Liberskind first revealed his original mater plan in February 2003. Some have proposed to redesign and decentralize lower Manhattan; others have questioned that if New York really needs another world’s tallest building, or maybe something more modest like affordable housing, linear parks, and true public spaces and institutes. However, beyond these issues, there is a far more intricate question cannot be easily answered: How the architecture profession has been influenced by the new capitalist society? And what is the role of the architects in the twenty-first century?

Architecture has been known as the product of aesthetics, structure, and function that serves to address social needs, resolve environmental and humanitarian problems through built form. Architecture not only shelters, but also has the ability to consolidate boundaries within our society. It realizes the role by physically defining space and by imposing its symbolic, representative meaning onto our living environment. As Ludwig Wittgenstein once said, “Architecture immortalizes and glorifies something”. Indeed, architecture must be documentary and didac...

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...uld be one of the most significant lessons September 11th attack has taught us.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Abby Bussel, “As the World Trade Center Turns”, Architecture, V. 92, N.9 (Sept 2003), 11.

Andrew Mead, “Close Inspection of a Capitalist World [book and exhibition review]”, Architects’ Journal V. 206, N. 17 (Nov 1997), 59.

Anthony Burke, interview held during meeting, University of California, Berkeley, November, 2004.

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Sam Lubell, “Libeskind’s World Trade Center Guidelines Raise Doubts”, Architectural Record, V. 192, No. 6 (June 2004), 47.