New York remains what it has always been : a city of ebb and flow, a city of constant shifts of population and economics, a city of virtually no rest. It is harsh, dirty, and dangerous, it is whimsical and fanciful, it is beautiful and soaring - it is not one or another of these things but all of them, all at once, and to fail to accept this paradox is to deny the reality of city existence.
Paul GoldbergerThe bias among architecture critics isn't against skyscrapers per se, but against the way in which their design is so heavily dictated by economic considerations - the way in which skyscrapers are real estate before they are architecture.
Paul GoldbergerWe identify New York with the great bridges and tunnels and roadways and subway system and so forth.
Paul GoldbergerBuildings don't exist to be pinned, like brooches, on the front of bigger structures to which they bear only the most distant of relationships.
Paul GoldbergerI think it's necessary to evaluate a skyscraper at multiple scales, since that's how we experience it: from right next to it on the street to from across the river, as well as at all kinds of points in between. It's important to think of it as an element in a larger skyline, but also as an element in an immediate streetscape.
Paul Goldberger