El rascacielos: de la tarta nupcial al 11-S Gordon Matta-Clarck vs Rem Koolhaas

Abstract

The skyscraper has been a controversial typology since it was conceived in the Manhattan incubator as a new monument symbol of the capitalist power. Turned into a programmatic wedding cake into the hands of developers, who mold it in accordance with its maximum speculative profitability, the skyscraper has been transformed into the new bizarre typology that every new metropolis wants to acquire. Both Gordon Matta-Clark and Rem Koolhaas will give free rein to their architectural critical minds –with large amounts of irony– in a decade, the 70's, in which the World Trade Center inaugurates the period of decadence of the skyscraper. Both architects will propose absence as a critical tool to recover the lost horizon of the metropolis, making the right cut to the skyscraper and transforming it into a prophetic void whose absence suddenly become the most powerful form of presence...