October 4, 2010

"The Ground Zero Mosque will be so hip, everyone will stop fighting."

Could wacky, chaotic architecture make everyone happy... or at least flummox us long enough for the whole controversy to dissipate?

61 comments:

Kirby Olson said...

It looks like one of the Twin Towers as it was about to fall down. Sufis like to laugh a lot.

Unknown said...

You mean hip, as in our cool, hip, post-racial, post-partisan President?

It does look like what he wants America to be. A structure full of holes.

Big Mike said...

Could wacky, chaotic architecture make everyone happy... or at least flummox us long enough for the whole controversy to dissipate?

No.

SteveR said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

Dutch politician Geert Wilders is on trial today for pointing out the obvious, which may be summed up by the following.

Via Powerline:

Abul Ala Maududi, the influential 20th century Pakistani Islamic thinker, wrote - I quote, emphasizing that these are not my words but those of a leading Islamic scholar - "Islam is not merely a religious creed [but] a revolutionary ideology and jihad refers to that revolutionary struggle ... to destroy all states and governments anywhere on the face of the earth, which are opposed to the ideology and program of Islam." ...

SteveR said...

Knowing the inside of said hip, wacky, chaotic architecture would be used to say things like death to the infidels, death to girls who date non Muslim men, etc , makes me not inclined to be flummoxed at all.

Oh, that won't happen? OK lets build it and start singing Kumbayah.

MamaM said...

Would it be art to drop a few buckets of blood and guts off the roof every day so the cellular tissue could create intriguing splatter patterns on the pavement and shard-shaped windows?

Christy said...

Anyone else first think "fractured" when looking at that picture? It evokes Humpty Dumpty to my mind.

Lincolntf said...

I got the same first impression as Kirby. Looks like a shattered building on the verge of collapse in the middle of Manhattan.
How very sensitive our Muslim friends.

Methadras said...

Ann, are you asking if style over substance will win the day? If that's the case, then this is a clear example of beauty not being skin deep for if you scratch the surface, the ugliness within will be revealed.

LouisAntoine said...

Innovative architecture is a muslim plot to confuse us into accepting sharia? Is that the new talking points?

So the new reason to piss all over the first amendment is... bland taste in architecture?

Lincolntf said...

Don't even bother, Montaigne. I expect that I've forgotten a lot more about architecture and the criticism of same than you will ever know. That prospective building has no redeeming qualities beyond those one would expect to find in a high-school level drafting contest. About as much chance of getting built, too.

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
ampersand said...

According to Muslims,God stopped talking to Man in the 7th century. If He didn't pass along plans for airplanes,telephones,automobiles
and elevators these things should be judged haraam. Anything newer than Mohammed is unislamic.

The design is awful. The City of NY should give this Imam the Edward Durell Stone building at 2 Columbus Circle. The Museum of Art and Design apparently protected her honor by covering her in a burka.

Unknown said...

How appropriate, Ahmadinejad referenced directly below the article:

Calls for US Leaders to Be 'Buried'

wv: lessesse - Lessesse if we can distract them with junk architecture.

Quaestor said...

Almost Ali wrote: "Dutch politician Geert Wilders is on trial today for pointing out the obvious..."

That a man could be on trial for speaking his mind signals that the Enlightenment is officially dead in the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

He's going to be found guilty. He has to be or the fascist oligarchy which passes for government in Holland will be fatally discredited. Thus we shall soon witness the spectacle of a man, a citizen of comfortably left-of-center Western democracy, convicted and sentenced for holding an opinion and having the temerity to express that opinion in speech and writing. The verdict will signal the end of Holland as a democracy. Holland will be counted among the thugocracies along with Syria, Venezuela, Iran and the former democracy formerly know as Burma. It will also give Human Rights Watch an opportunity to demonstrate that they are something other than a cabal of leftist hypocrites.

wv: blystic - (adj) relating to or characteristic of the motion of objects moving under their own momentum and the force of gravity, as in intercontinental blystic missile.

Innovation rules said...

Personally, I wouldn't work on the Mosque site. I also wouldn't take the materials contract.

Who will? I happen to know a few construction firms in New York, and none of them would either.

Maybe someone will. What will happen to their reputations if they do? The construction market is still relatively free, and markets have a way of dealing with these things.

Trooper York said...

The evil that is behind this travesty knows no bounds.

May they rot in whatever hell they believe in.

LouisAntoine said...

I expect that I've forgotten a lot more about architecture and the criticism of same than you will ever know

PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

First we had to suffer the rubes telling us what can and can't be built in Manhattan, according to their idiotic ideas about "victory mosques" and other garbage they picked up from watching the 700 club while drunk. NOW we have to sit through their CRITIQUES of ARCHITECTURE! Oh the humanity. Some folks just don't know when to shut up. God bless America.

Quaestor said...

The design reflects the intent. It's a monument to rubble. No, not Bernard.

dbp said...

Montagne Montaigne said...

"...watching the 700 club while drunk."

That's a keeper! What an image this conjures.

KCFleming said...

So the victory mosque will appear to be a shattered windshield?
Gosh, that's brilliant.

And oh!, those wacky Muslims, now targeting 5 EU airports for Mumbai-style commando attacks.

Robert Cook said...

I'm no critic, expert or afficianado of architecture, but I think the proposed building looks pretty cool.

It would certainly brighten up the dingy, dull little block that everyone in America who never heard of it two months ago genuflects to now in reverence because it's, ahem, "hallowed ground" (sic). (I'll agree the topless joint nearby is pretty freakin' hallowed.)

Lincolntf said...

Yes, Montaigne, this is a thread discussing critiques of a proposed building. Maybe you missed that part while you were watching Rachel Maddow and trying to screw up the courage to call your brother-in-law and ask for another loan.

SteveR said...

Some folks just don't know when to shut up.

I was going to say..

dbp said...

Having failed to kill us the old-fashioned way, maybe the Mohammadens are trying to get us to die from laughter.

I do approve of their new tactic to the extent it replaces rather than supplements their more violent ones. Let's not tell them that when a comedian "kills" is is only metaphorical.

Scott M said...

Let's not tell them that when a comedian "keells" is is only metaphorical.

There...fify

Unknown said...

Montagne Montaigne said...

I expect that I've forgotten a lot more about architecture and the criticism of same than you will ever know

PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

First we had to suffer the rubes telling us what can and can't be built in Manhattan, according to their idiotic ideas about "victory mosques" and other garbage they picked up from watching the 700 club while drunk. NOW we have to sit through their CRITIQUES of ARCHITECTURE! Oh the humanity.


Lincoln, don't you know that, as a card-carrying Lefty, Montagne is automatically smarter than you, even if you are an expert in your chosen field? As soon as they become card-carrying Lefties, they acquire that intelligence and sophistication that sets them apart from us Althouse Hillbillies, along with their legendary tolerance and compassion.

Some folks just don't know when to shut up. God bless America.

Some people need to take their own advice.

Robert Cook said...

I'm no critic, expert or afficianado of architecture, but I think the proposed building looks pretty cool.

Only because it's a design by Moslems trying to twist the knife over 9/11. If The Tea Party or 9/11 family members owned it, it would be God-awful.

Robert Cook said...

"...it's a design by Moslems trying to twist the knife over 9/11."

Delusional, much?

Anonymous said...

Regarding the rendering, it appears to have been designed by the firm of Gold, Israel, & Gold; the facade incorporates the Star of David at least a dozen times.

Lincolntf said...

Edutcher, it's partly my own fault. I'd forgotten MM was the troll who wet himself denying those anti-troop Code Pink rallies ever happened. I knew he was a troll then, so I shouldn't have bothered with him this time. Sad little twit.

Michael said...

MM: Excellent. You know something, perhaps a lot, about architecture. If so, then you know that the sketches for the proposed building (because these are clearly renderings and not plans: a distinction with a difference) indicate something that is going to be pretty powerful, pretty dramatic and, to some, pretty beautiful. If you know a lot about architecture you will also know that the rendering depicts something that is going to be extremely costly, extravagantly expensive.

Now, what you might not know is that they do not have the full plans and specifications yet. In fact, they don't have the several millions in architectural and engineering fees that will have to be incurred and paid before they will know how much this beautiful powerful rendering is going to cost.

And, finally, if you know a lot about architecture you also know that architects frequently get involved in projects that don't happen, that were pipe dreams, that were, sadly, bullshit.

And this is one of the latter.

Revenant said...

Judging from those photos, the people on one level will have a clear view of what the people on the floor above are wearing under those burqas.

KCFleming said...

Are women allowed in mosques?

KCFleming said...

Or do men in mosques wear burkas?

NTTAWWT.

John henry said...

I'll probably get hammered as a yahoo for this but:

I am going with Robert Cook. I think it looks kind of cool as well.

Not that I have any great expertise in architecture. Or that I know what it will look like other than the 2 pics in the article.

From an engineering standpoint I wonder if it is structurally buildable?

I am sure it will be more expansive than a more traditional architecture.

John Henry

Trooper York said...

"And oh!, those wacky Muslims, now targeting 5 EU airports for Mumbai-style commando attacks."

That can't be right. How could devoted adherents of the religion of peace contemplate such a thing? I don’t believe it. It can’t be true

traditionalguy said...

The Buildings of Muslims are edifices dedicated to the proclamation of Muslim chants over the City. Everything else they are is a trick to camouflage that one true purpose. Darkness is their game and chanting doctrine is their aim.

Trooper York said...

Of course Monty will be back in a minute to assert that Richard the Lionhearted is planning to attack Antioch or something.

Big Mike said...

@John Henry, a proposed building must be viewed in the context of its surroundings. And on that score, this building seems to me to fail pretty badly.

@Almost Ali, I saw that too. The Mogen David motif is all over that facade.

LouisAntoine said...

Yeah trooper, Muslims are all psycho terrorists! Then again, when you judge entire groups of people by the actions of psychos, then all American soldiers can be called psychos too! They didn't identify the religion, but I guess if the guys were baptists you could call all baptists psychos too. It's fun being a moron-- I can see why you like it so much.

Unknown said...

Robert Cook said...

"...it's a design by Moslems trying to twist the knife over 9/11."

Delusional, much?


Nowhere near as much as Cook. But Islamic triumphalism has always manifested itself in mosques built on the site of Islamic victory.

I know Cook never heard of St Sophia, but most people see it as a prime example.

John said...

I'll probably get hammered as a yahoo for this but:

I am going with Robert Cook. I think it looks kind of cool as well.


Hey, if that's your honest opinion, more power to ya, as they say.

Cook just has a certain history.

Beldar said...

Yeah, now that I know it has an artist's mock-up of an interior escalator designed to mimic an M.C. Escher print, I'm totally in favor of building a monumental Islamic center-with-prayer-space two blocks from Ground Zero to celebrate the terrorists' victory on 9/11/01. Escher rox!1!

Trooper York said...

Oh I see. It's not Richard the Lionhearted. It was GI Joe that is the one we should be afraid of and not the peaceful followers of the religion of peace and their oh so peaceful ways. With their fellow travelers and appeasers and apologists.

Glad you cleared that one up there Monty.

Trooper York said...

If the Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf wants to do something useful he should drop the mosque and build a driving school as anyone who has been in a New York City Taxi recently would be happy to contribute to with a clear conscience.

Scott M said...

Does it really matter one way or the other? Are you all forgetting that ManBearPig, who is apparently channeling Roscoe P Coltrane these days, says it's all going to be underwater anyway.

traditionalguy said...

If football players get a flag thrown for Excessive Celebration, then so can Muslims. Besides we would not be safe arount the Muslim Mosque, since the Sunni would bomb the Mosque if it is Shia, or the Shia would bomb it if it is Sunni. We should offer them as a compromise an extra large Garbage Barge to carry their crap out to sea where they can chant at the fish. But that would depress the fish.

Anonymous said...

Could wacky, chaotic architecture make everyone happy... or at least flummox us long enough for the whole controversy to dissipate?

"Dissipate"? The people who say they want to put up this structure are consummate flim-flam artists -- look at how they've handled other properties in Manhattan. They don't want to keep a low profile, they want to create buzz -- that's why the rendering is being released now, because the controversy was dying down.

I'm cynical enough to believe that there may be another layer of controversy lurking in this design. What do you want to bet that someone eventually will notice words written in Arabic hidden in the jumble of random intersecting lines? Remember the evil Burger King ice cream cups that supposedly spelled out "Allah" in the stylized swirl on the lid, if you rotated it 90 degrees and squinted? But of course the architect will claim, with Nixonian "plausible deniability," that people are just imagining things ... and somehow it will all prove that Americans are really racists. Racists!

Kirby Olson said...

It should be built on the moon. On most Islamic flags they have pictures of the moon.

Blue@9 said...

Oh, no.

Regardless of the purpose of the building, it's hideous. You may think it's hip, cool, and different now, but 20 years from now people will be saying "What were they thinking?" Look at all the 70s era buildings... they sure were hip and different at the time, but they're ass-ugly now.

Anonymous said...

Considering what that grubby block of Park Place looks like now, anything would be an improvement.

Peter

Hagar said...

I rather suspect that this brouhaha started out as some sort of New York real estate scam that did not work out quite as hoped and now will quickly be forgotten as everybody have got lots to write about in the final month before the midterms!

Milwaukie guy said...

Designate everywhere human remains fell and a block or two beyond as a National Monument and memorial. New develpoment would be subject to regulations drawn by Congress. Let the whole people decide.

Methadras said...

Kirby Olson said...

It should be built on the moon. On most Islamic flags they have pictures of the moon.


It's a crescent moon to symbolize Allah, the moon god.

William said...

Moslems are said to be good at architecture. See Alhambra and the Taj Mahal. I don't know enough to pass an informed opinion, but it does look cool. And that's one more reason to oppose. Do we want the freshest, most original building in this neighborhood to be an expression of pride in the Islamic faith?

Methadras said...

Is this new mosque design hip to be square?

jamboree said...

So there'll be a 72 sky bar on the transparent ceiling with bottle service?

Robert Cook said...

"I rather suspect that this brouhaha started out as some sort of New York real estate scam that did not work out quite as hoped...."

No, the plan was uncontroversial and the imam heading the community center was even on Fox News where the host--I think it may have been Laura Ingraham--gave the project her vote of approval. It was made into a controversy by bottom-dwelling far right blogger Pam Geller, and Rupert Murdoch's NEW YORK POST saw $ale$ in the topic and ran with the ball of hate she started. (As you may have heard, one of the investors in the project is also the biggest single stockholder in Murdoch's News Corporation--after Rupert Murdoch himself--Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal. Talk about the cynical underpinnings of Murdoch's operations!)

In other words, no one knew or cared about this project--or the few who knew about it were well-inclined toward it--until ill-intentioned entities with agendas to pursue/axes to grind actively fomented public fear and hostility toward it.

Michael said...

Robert Cook: Doesn't matter. They don't have the money for the building. They don't have the money to pay the architect to draw the plans to give to a contractor to bid the building. This is a real estate deal pure and simple and the "developers" will take the money and run. Watch.

Hagar said...

As I said, the scam did not work out quite as hoped.

dick said...

A new mosque has quietly opened in Manhattan a couple miles away. No need for another one.

some see the "star of David, six points at the top, breaking and falling down the building. But who knows??

Can you see burger king cups in clouds??