cool beans....

went to a lecture yesterday by Rafael Vinoly (the other finalist in the WTC design competition). lecturer was wonderfully entertaining and delightfully bitchy. Is really preciousssss when you hear a rockstar-caste architect peer-bashing with such genuinely unabashed vindictiveness. Needless to say, we got to hear all the dirt that happened during the competition.

Classic quotes + anecdotes:

"This is not supposed to be public information, but I'll make it public now in this intimate room."

~ Vinoly on the fate of an unallocated $1.2 billion in the WTC redevelopment budget, when speaking to an audience of 300+.

"So Herbert Muschamp, the architecture critic for New York Times, called everyone he knew. Everyone. There was Peter [Eisenman], people from Zaha Hadid's office, Norman Foster's, Rem [Koolhaas]'s....everyone. For some reason of seniority I suppose, the meeting took place at Richard Meier's office. Even though he is as old as some of the others present. [sic] It was a carnival where no one knew what to do or what was going on."

~ On how the whole competition got started after a year of planning cluelessness post 9-11

"Richard Meier has absolutely no sense of humour"

............ooooh

"I suppose he's the owner of death or something..."

~ On how Lower Manhattan Development Corporation had to sought out Daniel Liebeskind for the competition, after Liebeskind said "no".
~ the ultimate insult on Liebeskind's design [with the "wedge of light" every 11 September would ensure that there are no shadows cast on the site between 8 to 10.30 am, the "Park of Heroes", tracing in the ground the paths taken by New York's firemen, and the reconstructed "original" foundation walls] -

"When you're telling people what to think, it is no longer architecture."

Vinoly's insult is perhaps not unfounded, after looking at the design for the Victoria & Albert extension.

When it comes to media-lard-worthy schemes, architecture is just as dirty as any other business. For the full details of the bitch fight between Vinoly and Liebeskind- check out the article from The Observer.
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