Word: harriss
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Philosopher Roland Barthes believes a large part of the tower's fascination is its "fully useless" quality: "It achieved absolute zero as a monument." In a 1975 book, Author Joseph Harriss makes the same point: "Parisians have always recognized the human need for the superfluous." The late playwright Jean Giraudoux, who was born around the time of the tower's conception, came to its defense. It has reached an age, he observed, "when one likes to have children-and American girls-crawling all over...
...HIGH. "I doubt," Architect Paul Rudolph once complained, "that an ode has ever been written to a flat-topped building in the sunset." But in a recent issue of the AIA Journal, Landscape Architect Lynn M.F. Harriss points out that these rooftops comprise hundreds of acres of usable open space in the cities' most congested areas. Now a wasteland of tar studded with water tanks and elevator hoists, they could be made into green public parks...
...bleak flat areas can be sodded and planted. A building's watertank system could be extended to serve a pool or fountain, and elevator equipment could become a glassed-in display "for those who like to see the wheels go round." Harriss admits that such an urban transformation would take a little imagination and a lot of money. But the roof gardens would not only be a pleasant place to eat lunch; their greenery would also "exhale" oxygen, and so help to improve air quality...