Amy Waldman, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011 (320 pp., $26)
I moved to New York City in July 2002, part of the first generation that arrived in the city in the wake of the jarring attack and destruction of the World Trade Center. Just a few weeks after my arrival, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation unveiled six drab proposals that came out of an initial competition to rebuild the site. Now relegated to the dustbin of websites no longer updated, the proposals brought 4,000 people to a town hall meeting and an editorial from the New York Times, all decrying their commercial focus and lack of imagination. Herbert Muschamp wrote "the plans have little to recommend them…[the LMDC] has demonstrated little besides a breathtaking determination to think small."[1] Within a month, a new competition was announced, an "Innovative Design Study" that would result in Daniel Libeskind's so-called "Freedom Tower" being selected from seven much-discussed semifinalists and more public attention than architectural renderings had seen in some time.
At the heart of The Submission, a new novel by Amy Waldman, is another design competition thinking small, if in different ways. An anonymous competition to create the memorial for the World Trade Center site comes down to a battle between a minimalist monument that is the darling of the jury's art critics and a modern garden that the representative of the victim's families has thrown her support behind. The garden wins out, but then the name of the designer is revealed: Mohammad Khan, a Muslim. The design itself is quickly ignored; people choose sides and yell at each other on cable talk shows.
Waldman intends the book as a lens to chronicle the different ways people mourn and a lesson in sensitivity. But noble causes aside, the novel would be more instructive in the context of an architectural curriculum. Its most interesting moments delve into the messy politics behind the realization of design: the art of the possible.
"He, the youngest adult in the room, was momentarily wistful for the sweat and clarity of football in fall air. The rules were known to all."[2]
The rules of architecture's competitions are known. Design briefs lay out what is at stake, jury guidelines let everyone know how the process will be judged, and by whom. Of course architects are always told that the guidelines are open to interpretation; these minor abrogations are the source of their power. Yet they are only the most minor of incursions into the larger system, jaunts the public will likely reap little from. Where are the big risk takers?
"Brains were only half of success, maybe less; the other half was a nameless game whose coin was psychological. To win, you had to intimidate or bluff."
What architectural education lacks is an awareness of the networks that make design happen. Students and interns often hole up in studio spaces without regard for the world around them. Unlike their peers in business, law or even, increasingly, the sciences, architects are rarely made aware of the need to understand the "office politics" of their profession.
In his article lambasting entries from the original LMDC competition, Muschamp devoted considerable space to cataloging the actors and politics of New York real estate development in the early twenty-first century. After the competition, many called for more cultural development at the site, but as developer Larry Silverstein reasserted control in the process, "cultural space" miraculously returned to rentable square feet. Libeskind's "winning" master plan was merged into the proposals of David Childs of SOM, Silverstein's favored architect.[3] It's an old lesson that architecture works at the behest of capital, but with rare exception, architects have also been unable to corral political capital they might be able to leverage in their favor. With a better understanding of these needs, architects might be able to take the risks that could establish a reordering of their options.
"His submission, which had seemed so monumental at the time, had turned out to be only a small fragment of the mosaic of his life. From catastrophe—from failure—had come his true path...."
As The Submission navigates through the complex politics and high emotions of post-9/11 New York, Khan's competition entry exerts influence in surprising ways. But this typically happens for only the most high profile of competitions. Unbuilt projects live mostly in books and in the minds of architects, rarely reaching the broader public sphere. For every Ville Radieuse or Chicago Tribune building, hundreds more languish unmentioned. Architects need to be better guides for their projects, working to make them real to have a lasting impact on a broader culture. Here, The Submission's lessons make their best case for relevance.
Unfortunately, when the curtain closes on the backrooms of design, The Submission veers too close to established narratives. With the exception of a Bangladeshi widow—Waldman was the co-chief of The New York Times' South Asia bureau, so it's no coincidence that her insight into New York's immigrant community carries the most detail—its characters advance little beyond sketches of familiar types. Khan wears titanium rimless glasses and comes straight from the school of Ayn Rand's Howard Roark, refusing to compromise his design or even to offer much explanation as to its origin. The wealthy Chappaqua mother who lost her husband in the attack, the brother of a New York fireman who died a hero and the impertinent, ambitious reporter covering the memorial story—none of these offer much more substance.
Waldman's reporter's eye shines through as she weaves through the book's complex series of political events, but the imagination is lacking. If she had merged her understanding of the facts and realities of the situation with a more creative influence, The Submission would have been a book that lived up to the lasting impact of its subject matter.
Daniel Payne
NOTES
[1] Herbert Muschamp. "Visions of Ground Zero: An Appraisal; An Agency's Ideology is Unsuited to its Task." The New York Times. July 17, 2002.
[2] Quotes from Amy Waldman. The Submission. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011.
[3] For more on Silverstein's control of the process, see Andrew Rice, "The Saving of Ground Zero." Bloomberg Business Week. August 3, 2011.