GlitchSlapTko

I couldn't believe that this article reported by our sensible friends at The Boston Globe wasn't a joke. I wish it was, because although it wouldn't be a funny one, it would be more palatable as such than as reality, which I'm afraid it's in danger of becoming before too long. I'm not sure exactly what kind of monstrosity will be erected atop Ground Zero, which is now a place of quietude and contemplation, but one can rest assured that it will not be nearly as thought-provoking. Actually, on second thought, I imagine that it IS being designed to be quite thought provoking, but I'm afraid that it will aim to provoke ONE and ONLY ONE thought in observers. What will that thought be? Let's have the good Gov. George Pataki himself spell it out for us in plain English (would that this were an oxymoron). "We will build it to show the world that freedom will always triumph over terror, and that we will face the 21st century with confidence," said Gov. George Pataki of New York, who has the final say over what is constructed on the 16-acre site in Lower Manhattan. Indeed. No doubt that he'll succeed...but before he rubber-stamped the project, he should have done a little research into the history of architectural endeavors of sheer folly. Verily, there are precedents extant. Now as to the comment regarding the triumph of freedom over terror, far be it from me, expatiating expatriate that I am, to remind Gov. Pataki that actually freedom and terror are not, or at least have not been up until recent times, considered exactly mutually exclusive. Nay, it appears that domestically, terror has served a fledgling America quite well in it's not too distant past (and in Boston at that), and has continued to do so up until only very recently. I refer here to the courtship between Donald Rumsfeld and his 'old friend' Saddam. I should state here unequivocally that I'm not at all opposed to the juncture of architecture and ideology. It has at certain times and particular places produced results with which I find myself in accord. Nevertheless these have been results that have sadly been supplanted time and time again by other more...aggressive forms. Naturally, I'm more than aware of the fact that these two, architecture and ideology, are perhaps the most representative of the interpenetration of the political and the plastic arts (here I group architecture with sculpture), since by nature they are both firmly rooted in the public domain. But at times things can turn somewhat dark and surreal, as all things mobocratical tend to do. Please refer to Crepuscular Dawn by Paul Virilio, for much more interesting thoughts on this subject. Personally, I'm tempted to compare Satie's "Trois Morceaux en forme depoire" with Governer-cum-artist Pataki's current masterpiece "One skyscraper in the shape of freedom" but I won't do one of my favorite composers this great disservice, since the former is novel...stimulating, and the latter simply threatening to implode under the weight of it's own bloated, manque body. And since I find myself quite baffled by US and international policy at the moment, I'll reserve judgment regarding how NYC, and the current architectural apple of it's eye, will be regarded by certain extreme groups in the Middle East. Although they are not afforded a 'real' vantage point on this new Tower of American Political Babel, I dare say that their 'virtual' view of this blasphemy in steel and glass, that is to say it's looming 'ideological shadow' is far more lucid than America's own.