Buildings
Exhibition Celebrates Twin Towers
(archrecord.construction.com - 09/06/2006)
By David
Sokol
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| Courtesy Local Projects |
Visitors to The Skyscraper Museum this
month will be able to approximate an experience of the Twin
Towers. In an 11-by-22-foot hall, four acrylic posts mimic
the dimensions of architect Minoru Yamasaki’s columns.
Illuminated from inside, they are reflected in the permanent
stainless-steel floor and chromed ceiling designed by Roger
Duffy, and in mirrored walls installed by exhibition designers
Local Projects. The repetitive effect gives one the feeling
of standing beneath two endlessly tall buildings.
The installation corresponds with the
new exhibition, “Giants: The Twin Towers and the Twentieth
Century.” Curator Carol Willis explains that the show
is devoted not to 9/11 memories, but rather to the design,
planning, and reinvention of Lower Manhattan in the 1960s
that culminated in the World Trade Center project. She adds,
“This was part of that moment in American history when
there was a faith in technology and ambitions of bigness,
whether it was the towers or jumbo jets or a moonwalk.”
Models, photographs, and drawings narrate
the planning and design process. Additional elements, such
as audio clips of people involved in making and working in
the Twin Towers, contrast the epic architecture with human
experience—a strategy of which the mock plaza is one
component. “Our starting point was that people’s
experience of the towers is fading, it’s a history,”
says Local Projects principal Jake Barton. “We wanted
to recreate not just ideas about the towers but the towers
themselves in as many facets as possible.”
The Skyscraper Museum will launch a
web database of 500 construction photos of the Twin Towers,
taken by the buildings’ structural engineer Les Robertson,
to complement the show. “Giants” runs through March
4.
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