American Experience
The Center of the World: Interview Outtakes

Ada Louise Huxtable:
video | transcript

Speaking to the Spirit 1 -- On Building at Ground Zero2 -- Replacement vs. Rebuilding3 -- Speaking to the Spirit4 -- On the Rebuilding Process

Mike Wallace Pete Hamill Carol Willis Guy Tozzoli
Leslie Robertson Camilo José Vergara Niall Ferguson Philippe Petit
William Langewiesche Ed Koch Mario Cuomo Ada Louise Huxtable

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For myself, I just, maybe it's because I dislike those buildings, maybe it's because the tragedy was so horrendous, I don't want to see big buildings there. I saw a park in Paris that was so far ahead of anything we know about landscape design in this country, that once again, was something you could not visualize. It's the Parc Citroën. It's built on the side of the old Citroën factory. It's almost like an island of the Seine. The landscaping is uniquely beautiful. And it is for people. And there are pavilions. There are fountains. There are two pavilions that are like greenhouses. There's a series of pavilions that you climb up into. The fountains, the children are constantly playing in. They're, they are, we have none like them, they're orchestrated by computer, it's like music the way they play. And the marvelous, unexpectedness of the way these jets come and go and the children dancing around in them, and then these places to sit. I want to see something like that, because I think you could incorporate the right memorabilia. You'd think you'd be giving a place for closure to this generation, and a place for future generations to come and to understand. I don't say the whole site, that's ridiculous. I'm a realist. I know that in New York, you've got to build. But I would like to see something like this far more than some routine, clichéd conception of something tall. I think it's the political fallback. Politicians all say, oh yes, we've got to have something grand. We've got to have something soaring. We've got to have something that speaks to the spirit and to the hearts of people.