Yale Bulletin and Calendar

November 2, 2001Volume 30, Number 9



The Twin Towers came to serve as a beacon to New Yorkers, says Stern. "You could see them for 50 miles, so you always knew where you were."



For American architects, the sky
is still the limit, says Stern

The World Trade Center had many flaws, admits School of Architecture Dean Robert A.M. Stern, but its destruction on Sept. 11 has left a huge hole in the New York City skyline that needs refilling.

A native New Yorker, Stern is "a fixture in the civic and architectural scene in New York City," according to the citation for an award he recently received from the American Institute of Architecture. (See related story.)

The Dean (who also maintains an apartment in New Haven) has written several books about New York's architecture and urban landscape, and, as founder and senior partner of Robert A.M. Stern Architects, he has helped shape that landscape through the firm's many projects. He has appeared in several television documentaries, including the Ric Burns epic series on New York City, and hosted "Pride of Place," an eight-part series on American architecture, which aired on PBS in 1986. And he is much in demand in the media as an expert on architectural and urban affairs.

Constructed in 1973, a time when most of the city's newest skyscrapers were concentrated in midtown Manhattan, the World Trade Center was greeted with skepticism by many architects and urbanists, who felt it was "not really a good neighbor," toppling the balance of the lower Manhattan skyline, notes the Dean.

The Twin Towers also violated several principles that many architects were increasingly demanding of urban buildings in the mid-1970s, says Stern -- most notably, that structures be on a human scale and well blended with an environment conducive to human contact.

Even out of context, the uniform shapes of the buildings made the center aesthetically unexciting at best, Stern contends.

For each of those demerits, though, Stern can cite a host of redeeming features that in time made him and his fellow New Yorkers consider the Twin Towers as "friends."

The development of Battery Park City and the Financial Center around the Twin Towers gradually began "knitting the city together in a new way," explains Stern. Shops, restaurants and two first-class hotels made the World Trade Center and the part of lower Manhattan it dominated a more attractive place to work, visit and live, he notes. Ironically, he adds, the World Trade Center and its immediate surroundings eventually became the mixed-use urban hub that architects had been arguing in favor of for years.

With 112 stories and covering roughly one acre of land, the World Trade Center's very "monstrosity" also provided unforeseen delight, says Stern.

From the inside, the towers afforded a unique vantage point to the city and beyond. "It was spectacular," recalls Stern. "It was the top of the world." Sitting in the Windows on the World restaurant at the top of the tower, "You had this sense of being in some kind of gigantic aircraft carrier in the sky or, perhaps, a dirigible, sailing very slowly."

From the outside, the towers served as a kind of beacon, a point of reference for New Yorkers day and night, notes Stern. "You could see them for 50 miles, so you always knew where you were."

Eventually, the World Trade Center was accepted on its aesthetic merits as well. "The two buildings offset slightly, with that thin slice of open space between them, began to operate at the metropolitan scale like two gigantic minimalist sculptures."

Stern emphatically defends the designers and engineers of the World Trade Center, pointing out that the buildings performed remarkably well under circumstances that never could have been foreseen.

Nonetheless, Stern says, the disaster has had an immediate impact on the design of new tall buildings. Structural engineers working for Stern's New York firm made a close study of the collapse in order to improve many of the safety features of a 50-story building they are constructing in Philadelphia. "We are taking measures we wouldn't have taken otherwise," Stern says, adding that he is certain other architectural firms are doing the same.

Stern rejects the notion that huge skyscrapers will never be built again and that businesses will forsake the city for the suburbs. "Tall buildings remain a defining symbol of architecture, American architecture, modernity, corporate capitalism," he says. To those who are skeptical about the future of towering office buildings, he points out that the Pentagon -- although only seven stories high -- was not spared extensive damage and loss of life on Sept. 11.

Describing himself as an "optimist with a slight case of Pollyanna-ism," Stern says he is confident that New York City will get back on its feet in the wake of the terrorist attacks, and fervently believes the World Trade Center should be rebuilt in some form.

Stern notes that some people have predicted for years that the increasing trend toward cyber-communications -- i.e., e-mail, the Internet and the like -- would make the need for cities obsolete. That certainly has not been the case, he says, nor does he believe the Sept. 11 attacks imperiled the metropolitan way of life. "Humans are social animals. I think people not only work best in groups, they actually need to be together. Contrary to the stuff of romantic literature, the isolated pursuit of ideas is typically not productive or rewarding," he concludes.

-- By Dorie Baker


T H I SW E E K ' SS T O R I E S

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School of Management hailed for emphasis on teaching . . .

Iran is 'buckle' of 'terror belt,' warns exiled crown prince

Yale Books in Brief

For American architects, the sky is still the limit, says Stern

AIA to honor Stern for his contributions to the 'urban landscape'

Ireland's former prime minister to speak at YCIAS

DEA official and New Mexico's governor to discuss war on drugs

Show highlights painter John Singer Sargent's sculptural skills

Panel goes beyond fantasy and crisis to look at richness of Arab civilization

Yale has long history of teaching Arabic language

Conference on 'ideal' Native American school to include play, film . . .

Council on European Studies sponsoring conference . . .

Auction to raise funds to fight hunger and homelessness

Memorial service to honor Levi Jackson, . . .

Rescheduled talks to explore Sept. 11 events, evolution



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