quondam @ archinect/79/7903f.htm
so much for Liberty...
Stephen Lauf 2003.12.03 00:02
[The point of this thread is not the rightness or wrongness of security checkpoints, rather the ironic symbolism currently manifest by the architecture at Independence Historic National Park.]
Security checkpoints at IHNP are a post-911 phenomenon, and, as far as their 'design" there goes, they are makeshift and poorly executed. Using the former Liberty Bell Pavilion now also as a checkpoint adds symbolic absurity to the mix.
Granted this may all be temporary, but, if you are mindful of all the 200+ year history of this specific site, there's not much about it that hasn't just been temporary, or indeed ironic about the literal birthplace of the United States of America.
Perhaps the reason it is so difficult these days to design a decent memorial is because architects for almost a century now are more trained at designing obsolescence.
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