architects and WTC

[Claudia Westermann]

To Rebuild or Not: Architects Respond
(published in New York Times Magazine, Monday 17. September 2001)

Of course one has to rebuild, bigger and better. There should be offices 
and a mix of
activities, both cultural and business. Yes, there should be a place to 
mourn, but that
shouldn't be the main thing. It must be a place looking into the future, 
not the
past.
Bernard Tschumi, dean of the Columbia architecture school

We must rebuild the towers. They are a symbol of our achievement as New 
Yorkers and as
Americans and to put them back says that we cannot be defeated. The 
skyscraper is our greatest
achievement architecturally speaking, and we must have a new, skyscraping 
World Trade
Center.
Robert A.M. Stern

What's most poignant now is that the identity of the skyline has been lost. 
We would say,
Let's not build something that would mend the skyline, it is more powerful 
to leave it void. We
believe it would be tragic to erase the erasure.
Elizabeth Diller and Ricardo Scofidio

Whatever they take down, we'll rebuild. I think we should provide the same 
amount of office
space, that it's the least we can do.
Philip Johnson

Something else has come out of this, and that is how much ownership people 
outside of New
York feel about our city. Maybe it's not just our decision. Maybe we should 
let the American
people vote on it.
Ralph Appelbaum

Whatever we do in the future has got to reflect the sense that the West, 
its culture and values
have been attacked. I would hope that we would not be deterred from going 
as high as the old
towers were. We should not move back from that point. We cannot retreat.
Peter Eisenman

Once we get over the grieving, we should realize that this could be a 
defeat, or it could be like
Chicago after the fire, in 1871, when they invented the skyscraper and 
changed the ways cities
have grown all over the world. We should build an even greater and more 
innovative
skyscraper.
Terrence Riley, architecture curator, Museum of Modern Art

It should be rebuilt. We need office space, though we don't want to build 
the same towers;
they were designed in 1966 and now we live in 2001. What has to be there is 
an ensemble of
buildings that are as powerful a symbol of New York as the World Trade 
towers were. The life of
the city depends on people living and working in the city and loving 
it;  we want people there. We
want them in a place that can be magnificent.
Richard Meier

greetings Claudia - not responsible for that