A new Korean building planned

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-16161065

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"Millions long for immortality who don't know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon" Suzanne Ertz

I'm not so sure that this isn't just an unhappy coincidence. I'm sure they spotted it at some point and didn't think it'd be much of a problem, rather in the same way that an American might dress up as a Nazi for historical reenactments or halloween. Would like to hear someone from South-Korea comment on this.

(Of course it could be an elaborate insult; does anyone know whether (people in) SK would be likely to do that?)

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The opposite of hatred is love; the opposite of tyranny is love; the opposite of censorship is love; the opposite of evil is love; the opposite of politics is love; the opposite of war is love; the opposite of god is love.–– Salman Rushdie
Broadly speaking, it is held that getting money is good and spending money is bad. Seeing that they are two sides of one transaction, this is absurd; one might as well maintain that keys are good, but keyholes are bad. Whatever merit there may be in the production of goods must be entirely derivative from the advantage to be obtained by consuming them. –Bertrand Russell
Never believe a liar. Papa, angry people burn our home.

Even as a resemblance, (not done intentionally for bad purpose....who knows) it may as well serve as a memorial of the 9/11. It depends the way you see it. To me, it looks just fine. With or without those two buildings, condemnation of the terrorist attacks is the same just as it was the day it happened. Knowing what were they doing, for sure they have drown public opinion and that of other studios. It looks like they are half way done.

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STRENGTH IS BUILT FROM ONES FAILURES NOT FROM ONES SUCCESSES –COCO CHANEL

me neither mailady - architecture can be crazy, inventive, amusing even - but that is just a sheer insult to the world - I hope it never gets built. Awful.

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I live in my own little world, but it's OK - they know me here...

But surely the point is that an architect's job is to visualise what it will look at from all possible angles. If I were designing something it is quite likely it would have some unfortunate aspects, but surely not making those mistakes is the point of years of architectural training and hopefully some talent in 3D visualisation! If other people can see that resemblance at a particular viewpoint, it is the role of the architect to have already visualised it and realised what people would see, and link it to an iconic image!

And yes, living in a high-rise as a 9-11 memorial? - uh, no disrepect, but no thankyou!

Business driven project. Price of land very high. Instead of going higher, why not wider and more space for restaurants, recreation and wellness centers. As I said in my previous post, it would be (if accomplished) almost real size memorial of 9/11. Hundred years from now even today's foes of the USA will commemorate that horrific day with respect and regret for what they did. Besides we see footage and pictures of that day many times and we will see them over and over again so what is the point of dabating a sturcture in Seoul resembeling twin towers justified as a commercial preposition.

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STRENGTH IS BUILT FROM ONES FAILURES NOT FROM ONES SUCCESSES –COCO CHANEL

It has been submitted to public review and found to be faulty. Get over it.

After a few more bottles of rum it might even resemble a pair of tumbling dick weeds.

Now get off my lawn.

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"Sometimes I sits and thinks, and sometimes I just sits." - Satchel Paige

That is just rancid! Unless you have lived under a rock for the last decade, you would instantly make the connection, and in that instant pledge to go in another direction! Ignorance isn't applicable here. It simply isn't possible.

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"Be without fear in the face of your enemies. Be brave and upright that God may love thee. Speak the truth always, even if it leads to your death. Safeguard the helpless, and do no wrong". (Knight's Oath, Kingdom of Heaven)

Looks like Brassica oleracea botrytis.

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Off to Singapore for a spell!

I could care less what Korea's latest architectural attempt is and what other people presume to think it represents. To me it looks like something made from legos.

However, the Dubai Towers I find far more elegant and intriguing:

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Forgiving is Love, Love is For Giving.

I admire audacity. A true artist could come up with something audacious without resorting to gaining cheap noteriety by using the ghastly scene of the Twin Towers as their inspiration!

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"Be without fear in the face of your enemies. Be brave and upright that God may love thee. Speak the truth always, even if it leads to your death. Safeguard the helpless, and do no wrong". (Knight's Oath, Kingdom of Heaven)

No wall-art in Lahore?

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I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.

While I can quite see why people are up in arms about it, perhaps, sometimes, we all have a tendency to see things from our own cultural viewpoint?

In Kuala Lumpur there are two towering buildings (sure Thar or JJ will find pics!) which are known all over Asia as The Twin Towers. No-one connects them in any way to America. They don't, on the whole, have any idea that those 3 words have a particular resonance. Not even one in a thousand people, I expect, would know that was the name given to the the buildings that suffered a terrorist attack. (And, to back this up, I asked every single student in my classes yesterday if they knew the name of the American buildings. None did)

Yes of course most people know that there was a tragic episode in American history at the beginning of the century. But, much as it is difficult to adjust to, The West is a whole other planet and what is important, iconic, life-changing etc. to Westerners barely scratches the surface here. Just as the bombs, wars, natural disasters which take place on this side are noted, but hardly earth-shattering, to the people in Europe, England or America.

Increased security; the changing of laws; different protacols when travelling? These are all results, in the West, of 9/11. In the East, when they occur, it is because of internal security, progress, modernity. No-one connects it in the same way.

So no, I don't think the architect or backers etc. were brain-dead or have been living under a rock. They live in Asia. In many ways, we might be inhabiting seperate planets.

It's called Atomic Bomb Mushroom Clown.
I don't think it was made for children.

Romany, your post is one of the wisest I have read here on TFD.
I can only reiterate to those who have lived well-informed lives in the West, that people from the East do not think like you. I live in the Philippines, and despite the American influence, the vast majority of people know very little of what goes on outside. Why? Most people don't read newspapers, most don't have access to the internet, and those who do only use social sites. Television here is 24 hour games, singing and celebrity.
Their concern is making sure they can eat their next meal.

Truthseeker -

No, I'm not suggesting that the architectss and engineers are 'sheltered from the world'. But "the world" is not narrowed down to only The Americas, England and Europe.

Millions of world citizens are highly educated, well fed, well trained proffesionals. I teach hundreds of them. But they have no idea whatsoever who Brad Pitt, Abraham Lincon, Stephen Hawkins, Mother Theresa, Pol Pot, The Muppets or Abba are. They have never heard of Green Peace, Hippies, Women's Lib, The Renaissance or The Tea Party. While it may be very difficult to swallow from a pov where 9/11 is still such an integral part of one's cultural history, the fact remains that images that were part of newscasts of that time - and which did not appear 24/7 on National TV - are hardly going to stay in the minds of people in different parts of the world.

In fact, on reflection, I only saw those images a couple of times myself at the time and have never seen them since then. Look, had I not read this thread, but had come across this building once completed, it would no more occur to me that it had anything to do with America, terrorists, world domination, politics or things of that ilk - than it occurs to anyone who uses the term "Chinatown" that they are employing the patronising Trade Pidgin to designate an area where predominantly Chinese people live.

It might be humbling for people from some Western Countries to discover that the words "world-famous", "world changing" "world icons" refer to things and events that are, in reality, only familiar to a minority of people. Yet how many of us know the name of Thailands 'world famous' beloved Royal Family? Or when the 'world famous' Tang Dynasty was? Or what the 'world famous' events of June 12th signify?

Yes, 9/11 was the most frightening thing to happen to Americans not only in this century, but the last. It was the first attack on American soil since the Revolutionary wars. It is going to shape and revererate and remain in the American consciousness for a long time. Just as the annihilation of Coventry and the London bombings of WW2 will remain in British consciousness even for those of us who were unborn then; Or the Ruandan genocide and the Soweto riots will reverberate around Africa for generations to come. All these events have icons, images and taboos connected to them. Are we aware of all of those?

It seems to me, as I make my life's journey, that so many of the cultural differences that lead to misunderstandings, tension and even wars, could so easily be averted if we really made the effort to walk even half a mile in those 'world-famous' moccasins that we in the West are familiar with!

Interesting actually that the architectural firm is Dutch and claims not to have noticed the resemblance:

MVRDV regrets deeply any connotations The Cloud projects evokes regarding 9/11.

The Cloud was designed based on parameters such as sunlight, outside spaces, living quality for inhabitants and the city. It is one of many projects in which MVRDV experiments with a raised city level to reinvent the often solitary typology of the skyscraper. 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, it was not our intention.

The design inspiration of The Cloud is visualised in the first image on our website, a cloud covering the centre of the Sky scraper.

(from their website), which is at least a bit odd, but I do agree with Romany in principle. Maybe they had a mad idea about what art should be, or a bad idea about how PR works?

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The opposite of hatred is love; the opposite of tyranny is love; the opposite of censorship is love; the opposite of evil is love; the opposite of politics is love; the opposite of war is love; the opposite of god is love.–– Salman Rushdie
Broadly speaking, it is held that getting money is good and spending money is bad. Seeing that they are two sides of one transaction, this is absurd; one might as well maintain that keys are good, but keyholes are bad. Whatever merit there may be in the production of goods must be entirely derivative from the advantage to be obtained by consuming them. –Bertrand Russell
Never believe a liar. Papa, angry people burn our home.

Although I'm sure Truthseeker had absolutely no intentions of being patronising, my own life-long experiences of working for equality in the predominantly male fields of investigative journalism, feature writing and documentary making cause me to interpret certain things according to that view. So his depiction of me as a "well-meaning" woman who thinks good-will, peace and love can be spread throughout the world make ME feel as though I'm being dismissed as some dear old born-again hippy.

In microcosm, this is what I'm trying to get across: there is no such thing as a "World View" - of anything - because our ways of viewing things are so subjective. And while its impossible to guage the experiences people bring to their interpretations of things, I still believe that allowing ourselves not just to acknowledge that our own interpretations of our ideas as the norm might not be universal, but opening ourselves up to trying on different ways of looking at things goes a long way to helping us understand the world we live in.

So, stung by the idea of being considered a bumbling old party who lives in a cloud of unrealistic ideals, I've spent the last couple of days doing a vox. pop. on the subject of this contentious building.

I have now shown an image of the building to staff, students, parents and even grandparents locally.

In the office 1 American and 1 Englishman immediately said "9/11" when they saw the image. The other American hesitated and admitted that, 12 months ago, she would have said the same but after a year here she doesn't really think so. 2 other Englishmen said 9/11 when prompted but it was not their initial thought. 2 Phillipinos and 2 South Africans didn't see the connection until it was pointed out.1 Chinese teacher saw it when prompted. Not one other Chinese teacher did.

In one class of students who work for an International Company as Engineers, Buyers, Managers and HR consultants, a couple of people, when prompted (Does it make you think of any historical event? Does it look like an image you have seen elsewhere? etc) admitted that there COULD be a possibility that the building made people think of 9/11, but the others thought the idea was ludicrous.

But, what will probably be completely mind-blowing to many, is what the prdominant reaction was:- "Oh. It looks like an 'H'. It must represent Happiness?"

So. Yeah, lots of people are up in arms... but in one town at least in this part of the world, this building that is causing so much much of a hoo-ha has been dubbed "The Happiness Building." That's their Worldview!!