I sent this essay to the White House. It is included in the book.“
Betts began his remarks with a reference to his longtime friend. "1 would like to thank President Bush for his concise counsel to me, "Do something that will make people proud,' " Betts said.”
Betts came up with the entire idea of the design competition, which was a very good idea if -of course- it was managed competently. In fact before following the rebuilding process I was convinced that design competition is a fool-proof process.
Goldberger in his book “Up From Zero” described Betts’s intentions and demeanor “Betts believed. "It would help with putting pressure on them to reduce square footage," Betts said later. His initial notion was that if an architectural competition produced a spectacular design that captured the public's imagination but could not accommodate the full amount of commercial space demanded by the Port Authority, the authority would have no choice but to accept it. As things turned out, however, the Port Authority, which at first expressed disdain for the idea of an architectural competition—the authority "hated the idea, they were hoping that all the architects would go off and do stupid things," Betts said— agreed that something had to be done after Listening lo the City and ended up giving tacit, if hardly enthusiastic, approval. Probably Betts's most important accomplishment in the weeks following Listening to the City was to convince the Port Authority to accept the notion of a range of office space rather than an absolute number and to agree that some of it might be provided on adjacent sites that the LMDC could acquire”(112)
Betts chose Foster , ( almost forced him into the competition) Foster is a very logic choice he is one of the “usual suspects” that should be in such competition. Why will anyone question Foster’s admissibility or try to argue with Betts about it?
Betts suggested a program range from 6.5 to 10 million squar feet.
Goldberger addressing the big the 10 million square feet program wrote this statement
“The idealism of good design could not, in the end, mitigate the harshness of this extreme commercial program.”( 257)
It is seldom that one thing could be both heavenly and earthly at the same time. Working on the small program achieves both. A good architect use it to both earthly win the design competition as well as produce noble relevant timeless heavenly architecture.
It is funny when I read about the program range it sounded as if it had a small wording flaw since all the architects will choose the least amount which was the 6.5 million square feet , so in a way it is not accurate it to be called a range it should have been called a program reduction. Two prolific Pulitzer Prize winners authors wished if Governor Pataki would reduce the program in their two books regarding the rebuilding efforts, Betts’s idea of a program range achieved this.
Any architect in his right mind will choose to work with the smallest program. Because if it is about architecture and winning design-competitions, and any architect who work with the smaller program will easily beat the architects of a comparable talent working on the bigger program. Why all the architects expect for Foster worked with the bigger program, and chose to ignore the huge design advantages the smaller program allows them? The smaller program is also the more national choice provided that national choice aims at a better more elegant architecture, a better skyline and it allow to design all the insertions in a much better way including the memorial.
Any architect that is given a choice to work with the small 6.5 or 10 million square feet million square feet program and chose to work with the bigger program is like someone who is playing cards and had a choice of a truly lucky handed set of cards and a much worse set of cards to play with and chose the much worse set of cards. 4 out of 7 chose to play with the bad cards, SOM found the bad cards were not bad enough they made the big and bad 10 million square feet program a bigger and worse 13 million square feet and produced disturbing architecture. Foster played with the good cards and produced good architecture and was penalized severely. The game ended while THINK group didn’t have to reveal all his cards.
Working with the big program carries risk that mounts to a form of professional-suicide because not only choosing the big program limits the creativity of the designer but also it is fair for any contestants to assume with certitude that all the other 6 contestants will use the small program that will give them a far greater chance to create better architecture and easily beat his work.
Foster was not chosen among the 3 first places. Foster was “angry” ( justifiably so) It is worth investigating why the vast majority of architects chose the big program. In competition settings the contestants supposedly don’t know the work of the other teams or which program they adopted .
Betts chose THINK group and he “was enraged” when Governor Pataki reversed his choice and chose Libeskind I think the reason Betts was enraged was because that was his last chance to make good on the president commission to him. He couldn’t achieve his mission despite doing his best. He will not be able to “make people proud” as was asked by the president. Obviously he was overwhelmed by everything that was going wrong around him, one man standing alone vs. an ill-will cannot hold even if he has the president of the United States as a friend.
THINK group offered their Lattice Work without any program at one stage of the submission giving freedom to the developers to build the office square-footage, it was hard to figure out which program the group chose yet his gesture suggested that THINK didn’t like the big program. It could be read as an attempt to “smuggle” the small program after Foster’s attempt to openly use it failed, the “smuggling” attempt failed as well.
There are no incremental or levels of success in the rebuilding process every step has to be right. LMDC’s objectives were very low, so perfection was certainly within reach. In fact I can proof that their objectives could be multiplied by 20 yet perfectly won. Mr. Betts was extremely patient, a lot more than he should have been. He fought long and hard trying to achieve his mission. It was obvious from the beginning when anyone argues about the eligibility of Foster. Instead of arguing Mr. Betts should have answered to the commander in chief saying “ those guys don’t know what they are doing.” While it sounds a little brattish, ironically that was the right thing to do. The reason was every time the good will of Mr. Betts was defeated, the ceiling of the process was brought a step down which means the achievable 100% success was compromised right at the first step down. Stopping the process there would have saved a lot of money and verbalized the truth which would have led to confronting the situation. However, his patience served a good investigative purpose. It became clearly evident that there was an ill-will overpowering his goodwill. This ill-will prevailed in the end.
