Last week, we brought you images of ” The Cloud” a luxury highrise planned for development in the Yongsan Dreamhub of Seoul, South Korea. It appears now that Rotterdam-based, Dutch architectural firm, MVRDV has found itself in hot water as their latest project has drawn massive outrage. Sections within the media have led a storm of public outcry and criticized “The Cloud” for resembling New York City’s Twin Towers that tragically came down on September 11th, 2001.
In response to the resemblance of the Twin Towers, MVRDV has issued a public apology stating, “The Cloud was designed based on parameters such as sunlight, outside spaces, living quality for inhabitants and the city…It was not our intention to create an image resembling the attacks nor did we see the resemblance during the design process. We sincerely apologize to anyone whose feelings we have hurt, the design was not meant to provoke this”. According to MVRDV, the firm has received a number of “threatening calls and emails of angry people calling us Al Qaeda lovers or worse”.
Regardless of whether the design was intentional or not, it seems that plenty of people are upset with MVRDV; we would like to know what you think. Do you feel the “The Cloud” too closely resembles New York‘s Twin Towers? Let us know in the comments section below.
I put this model together for educational and informatable purposes:
First lets mention the truth; there were explosives on every floor in the twin tower to bring a structure like that down.
Now, the new Freedom Tower is not as structurally secure as the Twin Towers were, if 9/11 had been a natural event; if a large plane was to hit the Freedom Tower, there would be a partial collapse of perimeter columns and floors above the impact zone of the face of the collided wall. Primarily because the floors in this building is much heavier than the truss floors the twin towers had.
There are 7 perimeter 3 flange “H” columns and 9″ thick spandrel beams alone each face of the walls of the Freedom Tower, the TWIN TOWERS had 59 perimeter 4 flange box columns with 2′ deep spandrel plates [yeah those planes had help getting through a secure structure like the Twin Towers].
In the FREEDOM TOWER it would not need any help getting through, but to prevent a partial collapse, the structure of the Freedom Towers would have to incorporate an OUTRIGGER HAT TRUSS like the TWIN TOWERS had [which furthered the sound structure security of the buildings by 81%].
All towers in NY, has between 1 to 7 prime columns (vertically standing pillars) in their structures at its core apart from the perimeter columns, yes that includes the Empire State Building. The TWIN TOWERS had 36 prime columns and 4 sub-prime columns at its core, 12 of which remained 4 flange boxed columns all the way to the 110th floor, reducing in size.
So anytime somebody builds two towers (towers are usually shaped in a rectangular fashion by the way) and connects them through a corridor, people are going to scream and shout about 9/11???? This is nonsense.
I showed my 16 year old daughter the photo, blocking out the headline and story, and asked her “what do you think of this picture”? She simply said, “looks kind of weird.” So I say it passes the test. Now of course, that the controversy has begun, it will be hard to divorce the design from all the speculation and negative spin, so these towers might be doomed as well.
What test? The test of whether it reminds her of something that happened when she was 5 or 6 years old?
OH! I just NOW “get it”!…The building design is supposed to “simulate” puffy, fluffy clouds floating through the buildings, right? Now THAT makes sense! I can see why you guys want to just ride with the controversy!…
only stupid and paranoid people would entertain such a stupid notion that MVRDV’s design of this structure is like that of the twin towers disastrous event… how typically american, lol
Yóur Móm from digitaltrends.com said:
It will serve as a reminder to keep Muslims out of your countries or this is what happens.
It is a sad world we live in that every nut case who finds an excuse to be outraged is given his or her 15 minutes of fame and we are distracted from the very real problems we have in this country and the world. Sigh.
To my fellow Americans: Not everything is about us. Startling news, I know, but it is about time to get over ourselves. After all, we are headed for third world status anyway, might as well get used to it.
It seems to be human nature to always when there are options, to take the worst. Why if one thinks it resembles the (destroyed) WTC in New York, are people outraged. I for one believe that now any two high-rises next to one another would create an outcry. If for instance people would look at it as a tribute(as suggested by Lucasred) to the fallen people, to the building itself, to the architect, to the City of New York even, that I could understand. No wonder this world is in a turmoil if people when facing two options always take the negative one.
Suggestion to the architects: Just put a third building to it either in a row or in a triangle and ‘connect’ the cloud.
Architecture is architecture, terrorism is terrorism. Keep the two seperate. These buildings and their green terraces are a beautiful design that brings to mind the green architecture of Hundertwasser House on a large scale. While 911 is a tragic event, calling these architects Al Qaeda lovers is a bit much…
I think it’s a beautiful design.
If the dutch or the South Koreans called this a ‘tribute’ would it be acceptable?
The Dutch are quite ignorant when it comes to such issues.
They could round out the towers and also the cloud, making it like a disk shape or flying saucer, I would like that.
what a odd looking building. the whole two tower thing is a bit pc gone mad though