Preview

Architecture of the New Capitalist Society

Powerful Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1756 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
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



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. Colin St. John Wilson, "Speer and the Fear of Freedom," Architectural Review V. 173 No. 1036 (June 1983):22. Christopher Hawthorne, "Not the Object but the Emptiness", Metropolis V. 23, N.9 (May 2004), 113. Joseph A. Demkin. The Architect 's Handbook of Professional Practice (John Wiley & Sons, Inc: 2002), 13. Karrie Jacobs, "The Power of Inadvertent Design", Metropolis, V. 23, N. 6 (Feb 2004), 50. Peter J. Larkham, "Planning the twentieth-century city: the advanced capitalist world [book review]", Planning Perspectives. V. 18, N. 8 (Apr 2003), 245. Reg McLemore, "City Planning in an Economy in Transition", Plan Canada, V. 39, N. 4 (Sept 1999), 22. Sam Lubell, "Libeskind 's World Trade Center Guidelines Raise Doubts", Architectural Record, V. 192, No. 6 (June 2004), 47.

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    The title of Ada Louise Huxtable’s book is not the only thing that alludes to Louis Sullivan’s article in 1896, “The Tall Office Building Artistically Considered.” Sullivan’s article is concerned with how “form follows function”. However, the overarching question within Sullivan’s article asks: What type of decoration or façade should these steel skeleton multi-storied office towers be wrapped in? Huxtable believes that this very question is one that needs repeating. Huxtable not only gives us a look back, but also offers her expectations for the future in the answering of this very question.…

    • 135 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Best Essays

    Secondary Suites Dilemma

    • 1663 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Haughey, Richard M. et al. Higher-Density Development: Myth and Fact (Washington: ULI-the Urban Land Institute, 2005), 11-16.…

    • 1663 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Ada Louise Huxtable’s Frank Lloyd Wright: A Life is a thoroughly detailed biography with noteworthy insight into the astoundingly topsy turvey life of one of America’s greatest architectural geniuses: Frank Lloyd Wright. Currently the architectural critic for the Wall Street Journal, Ada Louise Huxtable hails from many other prestigious positions and accomplishments including being a former New York Times critic and winner of both the first Pulitzer Prize for Distinguished Criticism and the MacArthur Fellow. She has written several other books on American architecture including On Architecture: Collected…

    • 1847 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Best Essays

    Urban studies aims to develop an understanding the modern city metropolis. As Savage et al. have pointed out, the urban encompasses far more than just the physical city itself; understanding the city help us to understand many aspects of modern life (2003, pp.4). Many of its features, such as mass media and public transport systems have spread throughout society over the past century. Sociological studies of urban life began with the landmark publication of 'The City' in 1925 by sociologists Robert Park, Ernest Burgess and Louis Wirth from the University of Chicago, students of Georg Simmel who shared his belief that the urban environment changed man's personality and made relationships impersonal. They sought to explain different features of the urban environment within this theory and predict its development, starting with their own city Chicago, which they believed to be paradigmatic of new cities, designed to serve the needs of industrial capitalism (Park 1925, pp. 17, 40). Park and his colleagues posited a largely deterministic view of the city as a logically developing space ordered primarily by economic needs. Ernest Burgess developed the 'concentric zones model' to explain urban development and expansion of the modern city according to a predictable, ecological pattern (Burgess 1925). Louis Wirth has contributed to the school prominently in his essay "Urbanism as a Way of Life" in 1938, which sought to further develop a theoretical basis for the expanding field of urbanism (Wirth 1964, pp. 83). This text became one of the most influential works on understanding the social consequences of the city, and had real consequences; future sociologists have used his theory to help plan cities' layout (Knox & Pinch 2010, pp. 149). Although now over 80 years old and dated in many respects by economic change, the Chicago School remains highly influential in the urban studies today, which…

    • 3113 Words
    • 13 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Good Essays

    contests this ideology through two basic positions - its strict principles of rules and regulations…

    • 640 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    St Wren Cathedral Essay

    • 1044 Words
    • 5 Pages

    For this reason architectural meaning can never be objectified, reduced to functions, formal or stylistic formulas. “Architecture tries to create a place for people and current human needs in anticipation of tomorrow.” The interior of St. Paul’s effectively captures this idealism emphasized by the uncluttered ceiling and clear glass windows, which lighten the spaces, inspiring hope a precarious time. Contemporarily, the duty of care has evolved and the focal point has become the pursuit of earns. “Architecture must reawaken in itself the potential to communicate ideas about human identity and reestablish a relationship with cultural identity.”…

    • 1044 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Geography Synoptic Essay

    • 2010 Words
    • 9 Pages

    The economic development of a country can be defined as the growth of industry, wealth, employment and the level of urbanisation. The planning and management issues that are linked to economic development, are those associated with processes such as urbanisation, suburbanisation and counter-urbanisation of cities. These may include pollution of water, air and noise. Other issues may be the increase in transport and waste, created by people living, travelling through and working in urban areas. These problems need solutions, which often leads to planning and carrying out redevelopment of urban areas. The effects of urbanisation on a city can be seen in Sao Paolo, a newly industrialised country in Brazil where housing improvement schemes are evident. Furthermore we can see issues of planning and management in the UK, a more economically developed country, due to increasing re-urbanisation and suburbanisation. Using these 2 counties of different levels of development, I will be able to eventually assess to what extent the level of economic development will affect planning and management of cities.…

    • 2010 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    People have become more patriotic in the last 14 years. In 2006 when I had the opportunity to visit Ground Zero, I wore my dress white uniform. City patrons showed their gratitude for our service by insuring all meals, drink tabs, and hospitality was covered during our visit. All New York City Firefighters and Police Officers were recognized as heroes for their sacrificial acts. In years to come, the World Trade Center will be rebuilt. “The National September 11 Memorial & Museum would be built, along with office buildings, retail space, and a transportation hub. One of these buildings (7 World Trade Center) has already been completed and two are under construction. 1 World Trade Center will have more than 100 stories and stand taller, at 1,776 feet, than the original Twin Towers” (http://www.911memorial.org/faq-about-911). As The Center of the World (new WTC) is being constructed, more than 800 tons of structural steel is being raised into the sky each day. The steel is being bolted into place. Its unprecedented height and size of the twin towers pose a new kind of structural challenge. At a sheer 1,360 ft. tall, a major issue will be the high winds coming from the harbor. So the structure had to be made to “withstand 150 mile per hour winds. Super strong lattice of exterior steel columns, placed less than 2 ft. apart and locked tightly together at every floor.…

    • 513 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the decades following the Second World War, America’s cities began a transformation still being felt today. The increased suburbanization of the middle class, and the resulting movement to stop it, led to the development of new urban spaces which had wildly varying levels of success. New partnerships between businesses and government agencies resulted in legislation that had a variety of positive and negative effects on different populations. Architects strived to create new methods of housing the middle and lower classes affordably and comfortably, attempting to simultaneously mimic the advantages of suburban life while maintaining the character of an urban setting. These projects certainly had a number of successes but too often contributed…

    • 844 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Udo Kulter Mann – Architecture in the 20th Century – New York: Van Nostand Rein Hold, 1993, ISBN 0- 442- 00942-9-LC 92-26734. NA 680 K7913, 1993- discussion page 37-38.…

    • 2485 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The studio “Strategic Architectural Design Development” focuses on the contemporary social, political, economic and ecological problem of Manhattan, New York City. We try to design a new UN Environmental Council which can be an architectural icon of sustainability that will represent the necessity for sustainable environments. It will be positioned on the site of the UN headquarters in Manhattan, New York.…

    • 1842 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Operational Excellence

    • 58578 Words
    • 235 Pages

    Essays from innovators in real estate, design, and construction Edited by Kevin O’Donnell and Wolfgang Wagener…

    • 58578 Words
    • 235 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Gladwell

    • 1450 Words
    • 6 Pages

    On September 11th 2001, the deadliest terrorist attack on American soil occurred. Radical hijackers crashed passenger planes into the Pentagon and the World Trade Center towers in New York, toppling the 110-story Twin Towers, killing all aboard the jets and more than 3,000 people on the ground. Architect of the Twin Towers, Minoru Yamasaki, said upon their completion in 1972, “The World Trade Center is a living symbol of man's dedication to world peace... a representation of man's belief in humanity, his need for individual dignity, his beliefs in the cooperation of men, and, through cooperation, his ability to find greatness”. According to Yamasaki, he sees the North and South Towers as patriotic symbols that exemplify America’s exceptionalism and the status of the United States as an internationally involved country. Yamasaki did not simply see the two tallest buildings in the world in 1972, but looks beyond what he designed. He achieves the full sense of vision, where we have significant emotional experiences and explore the inner depths of our thoughts. Juhani Pallasmaa, in “Excerpts from The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses”, was not only trying to argue that architecture must be thought provoking but that we must use all of our bodily senses in order to fully experience everything. However, our sense of sight is more than sufficient in capturing the minds’ attention and delivering an emotional response from architecture. The Twin Towers before 9/11 and the upcoming Freedom Tower demonstrate that vision is the most important and being visionary, as Yamasaki is, connects us emotionally to more than just structures. With our visionary tendencies, the interpretation of architecture immediately results in an initial impression on what we observe, continues to have significant symbolism beyond its ‘life’ and illustrates an emotional, cathartic experience.…

    • 1450 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Architect

    • 22250 Words
    • 89 Pages

    TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGES 16 17 18 20 22 FOREWORD THE VALUE OF THE ARCHITECT…

    • 22250 Words
    • 89 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Best Essays

    Peter Hall. Cities Of Tomorrow: An Intellectual History Of Urban Planning And Design In The Twentieth Century [1996 (1988)]…

    • 4151 Words
    • 17 Pages
    Best Essays