Architecture as eternal delight: reflections on the attack of the World Trade Center

become an ignorant man again
and see the sun again with an ignorant eye
and see it clearly in the idea of it.

This is the ethical challenge of sustainable design today: to have a low impact on the Earth while powerfully impacting and uniting communities. A truly sustainable architecture sings to us as poetry does, expressing, as Gerard de Naval said, the "mystery...asleep inside metal," awakening us to experience the universe and to the possibility that architecture can be an "Eternal Delight!"

Notes

(1.) See "The Beginning and Spreading of Wahhabism," Part Two, translated, for the most part, from Ayyub Sabri Pasha's Turkish work Mir'at al-Haramain: 5 volumes, Matba'a-i Bahriyye, Istanbul, 1301-1306; "Bin Laden Adheres to Austere Form of Islam" By Neil MacFarquhar, International Edition of the New York Times, October 7, 2001. "Rise of Islamic Fundamentalism," By Col B.S. Burmeister, The South African Defense College, Thaba Tshwane outside Pretoria, South Africa: "Islamic Extremism: Wahhabism," on About, the Human Network with Austin Cline.

(2.) Fouad Ajami, "Nowhere Man," New York Times Magazine, October 7, 2001. For 20 years Ajami headed Egypt's security service.

(3.) John Hooper, "The Terrorist: The shy, caring, deadly fanatic" The Observer, September 23, 2001.

(4.) Ibid., see also Atta's homepage where he uses the name, Mohamed El-Amir, http://babsouria.free.fr/memd275.htm.

(5.) John Hooper, "Mystery Man: The 'nice' town planner who killed thousands," Sidney Morning Herald, September 16, 2001.

(6.) Hooper, "The Terrorist," op. cit.

(7.) Time Magazine (online), "Atta's Odyssey." October 8, 2001 Vol. 158 No. 16.

(8.) Janet Abu-Lughod, "The Islamic City-Historic Myth, Islamic Essence and Contemporary Relevance," International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, February 1987.

(9.) Ian Buruma and Avishal Margalit, "Occidentalism," The New York Review of Books, January 17, 2001, p. 4.

(10.) Hamid Mir, "Osama claims he has nukes: If U.S. uses N-arms it will get same response," Interview published in Dawn, November 10, 2001.

(11.) Pankaj Mishra, "The Afghan Tragedy," The New York Review of Books, January 17, 2002.

(12.) Ibid., 44.

(13.) Peter L. Bergen, Holy Wars, Inc.: Inside the Secret World of Osama bin Laden. New York: The Free Press, 2001, pp.44-45.

(14.) Mishra, op. cit., p. 45.

(15.) Ibid., 46.

(16.) Laurie Kerr, "The Mosque to Commerce," Slate.com, December 28, 2001.

(17.) Buruma and Margalit, "Occidentalism," The New York Review of Books, January 17, 2001, p. 4.

(18.) John Seabrook, "The Tower Builder," The New Yorker, November, 19, 2001, p. 64.

(19.) Ibid.

(20.) Kevin Flynn and Jim Dwyer, "9/11 in Firefighters' Words: Surreal Chaos and Hazy Heroics," The New York Times, January 31, 2002.

(21.) Conversation with Marc Cohen, January 23, 2002 at Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA.

(22.) Michael Sorkin, "Collateral Damage. Assessing the cultural and architectural aftermath of September 11th," talk given at Cooper Union, September 25, 2001. Other concerned citizens are raising similar questions. Harry Belafonte, discussing the World Trade Center disaster, recalled Martin Luther King's question after learning about the four young girls killed in a church fire in Alabama, "Why do they hate us so much?" World Music Cafe, National Public Radio, Thanksgiving, November 2001.