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Business & Labor
Architect Sues David Childs and SOM Over Freedom Tower Design
(archrecord.construction.com - 11/11/04)
By Sam
Lubell
Brookline, Massachussetts-based architect
Thomas Shine has pitted himself as an architectural David
vs. Goliath in a battle with David Childs and SOM over the
design of the World Trade Center Freedom Tower.
Shine, 40, claims in a lawsuit filed
on Nov. 8 in U.S. District Court in New York that Childs copied
a project Shine had developed while he was a Master's student
at Yale University School of Architecture. Shine claims to
have presented the project to Childs in the fall of 1999.
The project, named “Olympic Tower,”
is a twisting tower with a symmetrical diagonal column grid,
expressed on the exterior of the building, following the twisting
surface created by the floor plates’ geometry. Shine
copyrighted the idea last spring, and is suing for copyright
infringement under the U.S. Copyright Act.
“From the first time I saw the
design of the Freedom Tower,” which also features twisting
surfaces, a diagonal exterior grid and other similarities,
“I was very surprised at how close it was to mine,”
says Shine.
Shine, who says he has always been fascinated
by the twisting forms in ceramics, says he came up with the
idea while attending a studio course with architect Cesar
Pelli. Childs was one of the jurors who reviewed the final
proposals. As part of the lawsuit, Shine, now a partner at
his own firm, Choi + Shine, which he runs with his wife, is
presenting his original drawings and models next to SOM’s.
He admits having reservations about the suit.
“No one undertakes suing a multi-national
corporation lightly, and you can’t help but feel vulnerable,”
notes Shine, who was born in England but is now a U.S. citizen.
“But it’s not easy for me to just walk away and
let it go.” He mentions that he and his lawyer tried
several times to settle the issue with SOM outside of court,
but that that the firm was unreceptive.
His lawyer, Andrew Baum, of New York
firm Darby & Darby, stresses that the lawsuit is not intended
to affect the building process at Ground Zero. He says, “We’re
not trying to interfere with the construction of this building,
and we’re not trying to change the plans. We’re
looking for fair recognition of Thomas’s contribution
and fair compensation for his original work.”
SOM quickly responded to the suit’s
filing with a statement, claiming, among other things, that
the components of the Freedom Tower had been in development
by the firm long before Shine's project: “The suit that
Thomas Shine filed against SOM for copyright infringement
is specious. While Mr. Shine's building and Freedom Tower
share some common design elements, most of these elements
have been industry standards for decades. The diagrid structural
system combined with shaped geometry, for example, was first
used by SOM in Chicago's John Hancock Center in 1970 and has
been widely used since. This is a high-profile project and
a number of people have made claims that they were the inventors
of various parts of Freedom Tower's design. However, SOM and
its team of engineers, has combined these elements in a unique
way that reflects the special nature of the building's site
and its importance.”
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