Gladwell
English 101
Visionary On September 11th 2001, the deadliest terrorist attack on American soil occurred. Radical hijackers crashed passenger planes into the Pentagon and the World Trade Center towers in New York, toppling the 110-story Twin Towers, killing all aboard the jets and more than 3,000 people on the ground. Architect of the Twin Towers, Minoru Yamasaki, said upon their completion in 1972, “The World Trade Center is a living symbol of man's dedication to world peace... a representation of man's belief in humanity, his need for individual dignity, his beliefs in the cooperation of men, and, through cooperation, his ability to find greatness”. According to Yamasaki, he sees the North and South Towers as patriotic symbols that exemplify America’s exceptionalism and the status of the United States as an internationally involved country. Yamasaki did not simply see the two tallest buildings in the world in 1972, but looks beyond what he designed. He achieves the full sense of vision, where we have significant emotional experiences and explore the inner depths of our thoughts. Juhani Pallasmaa, in “Excerpts from The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses”, was not only trying to argue that architecture must be thought provoking but that we must use all of our bodily senses in order to fully experience everything. However, our sense of sight is more than sufficient in capturing the minds’ attention and delivering an emotional response from architecture. The Twin Towers before 9/11 and the upcoming Freedom Tower demonstrate that vision is the most important and being visionary, as Yamasaki is, connects us emotionally to more than just structures. With our visionary tendencies, the interpretation of architecture immediately results in an initial impression on what we observe, continues to have significant symbolism beyond its ‘life’ and illustrates an emotional, cathartic experience. As visual beings, impressions of what we first see give a glimpse
Visionary On September 11th 2001, the deadliest terrorist attack on American soil occurred. Radical hijackers crashed passenger planes into the Pentagon and the World Trade Center towers in New York, toppling the 110-story Twin Towers, killing all aboard the jets and more than 3,000 people on the ground. Architect of the Twin Towers, Minoru Yamasaki, said upon their completion in 1972, “The World Trade Center is a living symbol of man's dedication to world peace... a representation of man's belief in humanity, his need for individual dignity, his beliefs in the cooperation of men, and, through cooperation, his ability to find greatness”. According to Yamasaki, he sees the North and South Towers as patriotic symbols that exemplify America’s exceptionalism and the status of the United States as an internationally involved country. Yamasaki did not simply see the two tallest buildings in the world in 1972, but looks beyond what he designed. He achieves the full sense of vision, where we have significant emotional experiences and explore the inner depths of our thoughts. Juhani Pallasmaa, in “Excerpts from The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses”, was not only trying to argue that architecture must be thought provoking but that we must use all of our bodily senses in order to fully experience everything. However, our sense of sight is more than sufficient in capturing the minds’ attention and delivering an emotional response from architecture. The Twin Towers before 9/11 and the upcoming Freedom Tower demonstrate that vision is the most important and being visionary, as Yamasaki is, connects us emotionally to more than just structures. With our visionary tendencies, the interpretation of architecture immediately results in an initial impression on what we observe, continues to have significant symbolism beyond its ‘life’ and illustrates an emotional, cathartic experience. As visual beings, impressions of what we first see give a glimpse