Firm Foundations?

Pete Peterson

The next steps in the eventual building of One World Trade Center were taken last month in a desolate patch of the New Mexico desert about ninety miles south of Albuquerque with little media fanfare, but a large bang. There, the building’s architects from Skidmore, Owings & Merrill witnessed the explosion of a three-story replica of the structure’s aluminum and glass casing. The test was a success as only few of the glass panels were smashed in the blast.

In a post–9/11 world, that’s how we must design and build the skyscrapers of the future: capable of withstanding acts of God and man. Here in California, earthquake-testing our tall buildings has been a mandated practice for decades, and in other regions of the country, formalized tests for withstanding high wind and rain are not only well-known, but are a required part of architectural education.

This new type of architectural evaluation, called “dynamic testing,” has been around for only a decade. It has already been used to gauge the strength of vulnerable government buildings, like the American embassy in Beijing. Recently, though, dynamic testing has been used on more mundane structures like office buildings in American cities. The 1,776-foot-tall structure to be built at Ground Zero is not the only office building to be so tested. Other teams of architects have made the trek out to New Mexico’s desert to blow up their designs for structures (identities kept secret) that will soon grace the Manhattan skyline.

So now architecture as a field—that great melding of art and science—has fallen under terrorism’s specter. Today’s artisans must consider the possible impacts of man’s inhumanity to man in their designs, and one wonders how the beauty of tomorrow’s monoliths will be affected. I’m no expert on the subject, but I find it difficult to believe that only the most awe-inspiring buildings can sustain a bomb blast. Logically, not many of our great structures could—from the Empire State Building to the Taj Mahal to the Royal Sydney Opera House. Could such be built under these new restrictions? I doubt it.

In a certain sense, of course, these developments could be expected. I was a salesman working in Manhattan on 9/11, and I distinctly remember the progressive changes to the office buildings on which I used to call in the months following the tragedy. First, there was the heightened security at the front desk—no longer could one breeze over to the elevators for an eventual cold call. Many a nervous-looking security guard in that first year after the tragedy demanded “name, rank, and serial number,” and all appointments were verified. Shortly after this appeared the built-in barricades of various heights and shapes, making each saunter up to an office building into a mini-obstacle course. Aesthetically, some of these magnificent structures took on the look of armed compounds.

And now deference to terrorism has moved from the perimeters to the very skeletons of tomorrow’s buildings. Ironically, even One World Trade Center, previously known as the “Freedom Tower,” will have to accommodate terrorism once again, built in to its very foundation. Like traces of an antibacterial drug, which remain in the body forever, these architectural decisions assure that there will always be a regard for man’s corrupted nature and its sustaining ideologies. Some may call this prudent preparedness for life in the post–9/11 world. I believe it is another step of acquiescence.  

Pete Peterson lectures on State & Local Governance at Pepperdine’s School of Public Policy in Malibu, California.

0 Responses • Provocations, Good and Evil, Science and Technology, Sun 27 Apr 2008