Only in New York can a building project run so out of hand that it cost $4 billion, that is equivalent to a tremendous number of school, hospitals or even electric cars and solar panels. All to build a station/hub in the heart of Manhatten.
Santiago Calatrava designed a spiky catherdal, which is a great way to stick in the minds of people (having spikey shapes). It is named Oculus, which creates the idea of spikes in the eye, also a great way to make a concept stick. Oculus Rift will not be pleased because soon Google search will not show up their product but whatever. Some pictures of its construction.
Its amazing what you can do with $4 Billion. The entire structure is useless except it creates a visually remarkable (avoiding the words iconic or stunning) object. Many railway and subway stations get more funds and become more elaborate, for example also the Rotterdam Central station.
We’re pretty sure this station did not cost $4 Billion. It seems such a shamefull amount to waste on a subway station. How will it generate its return. Of course that’s not needed, the game is to get the money flowing, based on credit based on imaginary returns. As south Manhattan is slowely losing its importance to algorithms and a fragmentation of important trade (as the BRICS countries cooperate without dollar credit).
We really like the beauty of the Manhattan Oculus, It seems that as long as you waste money in a creative and fantastic way even the most hardened blogger will praise you. How much trees could have been planted? How much pollution did melting and flatteing that steel create? 4 Billion trees or a white spikey flying whale to protect you against rain, a hard choice.
Elong Musks Hyperloop could have connected New York to Boston for that money for sure. Today one can simulate these structures and of course this has been done. It allows for elegant lightweight designs, but this one isn’t even to hard. Laser cutting grants us steel plates in any shape. Its easy to build one of these things, and forget about the shopping mall beneath. Building the Eiffel tower without a crane and without computers is a much more monumental feat. You could build 111 Eiffel towers for $4 billion because that project only cost $36 million.
Maybe the financial side of this project can be reaudited because some people must have made money for doing very little. Who knows who you find in the concrete if it gets dug up by the next dominant species on Earth in about 4 million years (after climate change snuffed out most life clean)
The Oculus is a remarkable building but it has a price tag that is embarrasing. Lets not burden public transportation with more of these projects. With 3d printing and laser cutting etc these projects should cost much less, and there would be a lot of other options giving more bang for the bucks.
The Petronas towers where build for 25% more..
You can see it shows you how your money grew wings and flew away..
A subway needs an entrance. You want to have that cozy feeling like you’re inside a trilobite.
“It was a very succesfull mall before 9/11″…