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October 11, 2006
Good Times
By resisting easy temptations Renzo Piano has accomplished something rare: unstrained symbolism.
By Philip Nobel
For some reason, Frank Gehry missed the opportunity to design New York's latest signature tower, the Times Tower developed by Forest City Ratner. Philip Nobel reviews a project that might have been built in comparison to a project that is still yet to be finished. Despite all of the hand-wringing about Gehry, Renzo Piano "pulled off a neat rare trick," and "has delivered a classic with grace, in a graceless corner of the city."
Gehry’s much bemoaned design would have taken the easier course. His building was itself a sign, a tower seemingly enfolded in newsprint, with that cheeky Times logo on high to ram the point home. The architect might have proposed it for any site—so all-consuming and evolution averse is his personal vision—but here, a short hot-dog toss from the faux bawdy of 42nd Street, it would have looked a lot like the path of least resistance. While retaining all the familiar tics of his style, Gehry tried to say “New York Times” in the new language of the New Times Square: in signs and symbols, loudly but only on the surface. In contrast, the Piano design employs the very stuff of architecture—the same steel that makes the building stand, the glass that shields it—to create a whole that says, with appropriate rigor, the New York Times resides here, if you please.
Posted by lumi at October 11, 2006 8:02 AM