Izeklah
September 30th, 2004, 08:43 AM
Apparently it's out:
Buildings, personalities deconstructed in new book by WTC architect Libeskind
By KAREN MATTHEWS
Associated Press Writer
September 29, 2004, 5:37 PM EDT
NEW YORK -- Daniel Libeskind became one of the world's best-known architects when his emotionally charged plan for the World Trade Center site was chosen.
Then, according to most versions, he was shunted aside when the developer brought in his own architect to redesign Libeskind's signature Freedom Tower.
Libeskind doesn't see it that way. His version, that his ground zero plan has largely survived a painful process of compromise and collaboration, is laid out in a new book that also chronicles the harrowing lives of his immigrant parents and his own circuitous route to architecture's top ranks.
The book, "Breaking Ground: Adventures in Life and Architecture," offers a discourse on architecture: Libeskind compares it to music and choreography but quotes Philip Johnson as saying "all architects are prostitutes."
It also is the story of a remarkable marriage and business partnership between Libeskind and his wife, Nina, whom he met at a Yiddish summer camp when he was 20 and she was 17 and he thought she was "so beautiful she must be stupid." And it's a chance to settle scores with trade center leaseholder Larry Silverstein and his architect, David Childs, and with others.
Libeskind, though, was upbeat and relatively diplomatic in an interview in his firm's lower Manhattan office. As always, he wore black except for an American flag lapel pin and spoke in a rushed staccato.
"People often criticize me," he said. "I compromised here and I negotiated there. ... But I believe in it.
"You have to be flexible, you have to be able to accommodate future needs ... but at the same time, you have to create a plan that has integrity and strength and that can withstand all these changes."
Libeskind, 58, devotes a chapter of "Breaking Ground" to his "forced marriage" to Childs and his firm, Skidmore, Owings and Merrill. Relations between SOM and Studio Daniel Libeskind became so strained, he said, that the situation "recalled the orchestrated arrangements between North and South Korea at the very tense border at Panmunjom."
An SOM spokeswoman, Elizabeth Kubany, responded: "Every creative process has its tensions, and this one was no different. But we do not feel we can waste any time or energy rehashing grievances about the process."
Libeskind writes that Silverstein had "uncompromising demands for yet more office space without regard for the public plazas, parks, memorials, and streets of the master plan."
Howard Rubenstein, a spokesman for Silverstein, said, "With so many different stake-holders, it certainly was a challenging process to arrive at the Freedom Tower design. But the result is spectacular. We regret that Daniel Libeskind feels the need to attack so many of the participants in that effort."
When the cornerstone for the Freedom Tower was laid July 4, its symbolic height of 1,776 feet remained _ after an epic battle that, according to "Breaking Ground," required the intervention of New York Gov. George Pataki. But the building's design was a compromise that some critics called the worst of both worlds.
"People have different opinions," Libeskind said, "but I think it's a great design and I think when it's built, people will forget the squabbles."
Libeskind's plan for the trade center site was chosen by the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., a city-state agency created to rebuild downtown after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, in a drawn-out and highly public process.
He tells unflattering stories about several of the other architects who submitted schemes.
Peter Eisenman, part of a team that included Richard Meier and Charles Gwathmey, had been Libeskind's teacher at Cooper Union. When he showed up at the institute, Libeskind writes, Eisenman "handed me a broom and told me to sweep the office. It was a demeaning initiation, a forced act of submission."
Eisenman remembers it differently, said his spokeswoman, Cynthia Davidson.
"When Danny showed up on the first day of the institute opening in the fall, Peter was sweeping the floor and he welcomed Danny and said, 'We're all cleaning up now, why don't you take this broom and I'll take another one,"' she said. "He refused."
Frederic Schwartz, a member of the THINK team whose design was the runner-up to Libeskind's, is described grabbing Libeskind by the collar at the Venice Biennale, shaking him and growling, "I'm a New Yorker, damn it! Don't tell me how to build my city!"
Schwartz called the account "inaccurate and defamatory."
"I never grabbed his collar and I never shook him," Schwartz said in an e-mail. "I don't use the word 'damn' or 'damn it."'
Asked about the attacks on his rivals, Libeskind said, "Life is not just about heroes, it's also about villains. ... I think it gives people the idea that architecture is flesh and blood, it is not just creating some sort of machine for living. ... It involves struggles which are not only intellectual but emotional and often spiritual."
Copyright © 2004, The Associated Press
Buildings, personalities deconstructed in new book by WTC architect Libeskind
By KAREN MATTHEWS
Associated Press Writer
September 29, 2004, 5:37 PM EDT
NEW YORK -- Daniel Libeskind became one of the world's best-known architects when his emotionally charged plan for the World Trade Center site was chosen.
Then, according to most versions, he was shunted aside when the developer brought in his own architect to redesign Libeskind's signature Freedom Tower.
Libeskind doesn't see it that way. His version, that his ground zero plan has largely survived a painful process of compromise and collaboration, is laid out in a new book that also chronicles the harrowing lives of his immigrant parents and his own circuitous route to architecture's top ranks.
The book, "Breaking Ground: Adventures in Life and Architecture," offers a discourse on architecture: Libeskind compares it to music and choreography but quotes Philip Johnson as saying "all architects are prostitutes."
It also is the story of a remarkable marriage and business partnership between Libeskind and his wife, Nina, whom he met at a Yiddish summer camp when he was 20 and she was 17 and he thought she was "so beautiful she must be stupid." And it's a chance to settle scores with trade center leaseholder Larry Silverstein and his architect, David Childs, and with others.
Libeskind, though, was upbeat and relatively diplomatic in an interview in his firm's lower Manhattan office. As always, he wore black except for an American flag lapel pin and spoke in a rushed staccato.
"People often criticize me," he said. "I compromised here and I negotiated there. ... But I believe in it.
"You have to be flexible, you have to be able to accommodate future needs ... but at the same time, you have to create a plan that has integrity and strength and that can withstand all these changes."
Libeskind, 58, devotes a chapter of "Breaking Ground" to his "forced marriage" to Childs and his firm, Skidmore, Owings and Merrill. Relations between SOM and Studio Daniel Libeskind became so strained, he said, that the situation "recalled the orchestrated arrangements between North and South Korea at the very tense border at Panmunjom."
An SOM spokeswoman, Elizabeth Kubany, responded: "Every creative process has its tensions, and this one was no different. But we do not feel we can waste any time or energy rehashing grievances about the process."
Libeskind writes that Silverstein had "uncompromising demands for yet more office space without regard for the public plazas, parks, memorials, and streets of the master plan."
Howard Rubenstein, a spokesman for Silverstein, said, "With so many different stake-holders, it certainly was a challenging process to arrive at the Freedom Tower design. But the result is spectacular. We regret that Daniel Libeskind feels the need to attack so many of the participants in that effort."
When the cornerstone for the Freedom Tower was laid July 4, its symbolic height of 1,776 feet remained _ after an epic battle that, according to "Breaking Ground," required the intervention of New York Gov. George Pataki. But the building's design was a compromise that some critics called the worst of both worlds.
"People have different opinions," Libeskind said, "but I think it's a great design and I think when it's built, people will forget the squabbles."
Libeskind's plan for the trade center site was chosen by the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., a city-state agency created to rebuild downtown after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, in a drawn-out and highly public process.
He tells unflattering stories about several of the other architects who submitted schemes.
Peter Eisenman, part of a team that included Richard Meier and Charles Gwathmey, had been Libeskind's teacher at Cooper Union. When he showed up at the institute, Libeskind writes, Eisenman "handed me a broom and told me to sweep the office. It was a demeaning initiation, a forced act of submission."
Eisenman remembers it differently, said his spokeswoman, Cynthia Davidson.
"When Danny showed up on the first day of the institute opening in the fall, Peter was sweeping the floor and he welcomed Danny and said, 'We're all cleaning up now, why don't you take this broom and I'll take another one,"' she said. "He refused."
Frederic Schwartz, a member of the THINK team whose design was the runner-up to Libeskind's, is described grabbing Libeskind by the collar at the Venice Biennale, shaking him and growling, "I'm a New Yorker, damn it! Don't tell me how to build my city!"
Schwartz called the account "inaccurate and defamatory."
"I never grabbed his collar and I never shook him," Schwartz said in an e-mail. "I don't use the word 'damn' or 'damn it."'
Asked about the attacks on his rivals, Libeskind said, "Life is not just about heroes, it's also about villains. ... I think it gives people the idea that architecture is flesh and blood, it is not just creating some sort of machine for living. ... It involves struggles which are not only intellectual but emotional and often spiritual."
Copyright © 2004, The Associated Press