Paul Goldberger

"There is one architectural firm in New York City that has been notably successful in obtaining commissions in the , so much so that the blocks behind and just north and south of the seem at first glance to consist entirely of structures of its design. The firm is , and unlike most of the other politically well-connected architects who operate in New York, the standard of design has been relatively decent. The firm's impact here has been enormous. Most notable is the , completed in 1973 ..."

"Books about technical subjects for nontechnicians tend to be obtuse, condescending, or both. The Tower and the Bridge is neither. It is a clear, concise introduction to a difficult subject, and it is written with respect and even passion — something one rarely finds in a book with the word engineering in its title. David P. Billington is clearly moved by great structures — he means it when he says that major works of structural engineering are like the art of poetry, while architecture is the art of prose. ... Mr. Billington creates a set of standards for judging the great structures of the 19th and 20th centuries, and he applies them fairly and consistently. He admires most those works that bring beauty out of relatively spare physical form — the , 's skyscrapers — and he has a good enough eye to distinguish between what is simple and elegant and what is simple and plain."

"There is a fragility inherent in the symbolism of every great street in New York: stands for a theater that is perpetually in crisis, for financial empires that seem ever ready to decamp to New Jersey, and , perhaps the most celebrated of them all, for a luxury and a style that once seemed unique to New York, but now feels more and more like what can be found in every medium-sized city and shopping mall from here to ."

"... , writing in ancient Rome around 30 , set out the three elements of architecture as "commodity, firmness, and delight," and no one has done better than his tripartite definition, for it cogently sums up the architectural paradox: a building must be useful while at the same time it must be the opposite of useful, since art—delight, in Vitruvian parlance—by its very essence has no mundane function. And then, on top of all that, a building must be constructed according to the laws of engineering, which is is to say that it must be built to stand up. ... The builders of the , the s, s, and were all engineers as much as architects; to them these disciples were one. So, too, with and his , or at . In our time, the disciplines have diverged, and engineers are not architects. But every great structure of modern times, from 's to 's , is a product of engineers as much as of architects; without firmness, there will be no delight. All three elements of architecture are essential."

"I once heard a prominent museum director call the of architecture. Her fame as an architect owes much to her image as a flamboyant diva who produces striking, over-the-top buildings—a wild woman who makes wild things. Perhaps this is why, despite being the first woman to win the , she has had so little success in the United Kingdom, where her practice was founded, in 1980, and has been based ever since. When the British build modern things, they tend to like them cool and buttoned-up, and Hadid’s buildings are almost explosive in their energy. They look as if they could fly you to the moon."

"The extraordinary shape had conceived for , inspired the architect , who toured the museum a few months before its completion, to proclaim it "the greatest building of our time." It stood as evidence of Gehry's ability to envision form that had not existed before: exhilarating, robust, and baroque in its richness and complexity. The museum could not be called anything but modern, but it was not your father's modernism. Its unusual form bore no resemblance to the stark glass boxes that most people identified with modern architecture."

"Three years are gone, and the has faded from New York. Sorrow and rage have ebbed. The void of ground zero is another construction site. Its fate is now part of a story of process. In this fine book, Paul Goldberger weaves a vivid tale of that process, its hopeful visions, its small triumphs, its ultimate stalemate. His credentials are obvious: more than 30 years as architecture critic of ' and '; author of respected books on city buildings. He saw the go up; 30 years later he gazed at its rubble."