Who Is David Fisher?
“Over the last three decades, he have been passionately designing buildings in harmony with nature,” according to his bio.
Yesterday, at a press conference in New York, the Italian architect David Fisher announced the “world’s first building in motion,” an 80-story skyscraper with revolving prefabricated floors planned for construction in (where else?) Dubai. The project’s structural engineer, Leslie E. Robertson, says that the rotating tower is “absolutely” buildable. But is David Fisher the right person to build it? Who is he, anyway?
Don’t confuse him with David Childs, the SOM partner behind the Freedom Tower. Fisher has a rather, uh, lower profile. Perhaps the Wall Street Journal put it best: “David Fisher acknowledges that he is not well known, has never built a skyscraper before and hasn’t practiced architecture regularly in decades.” (Aside: Is this the WSJ’s version of New York Times humor?)
If you’re still thinking about investing $3,000 per square foot, consider this: the Associate Press is reporting that a biography Fisher has been distributing for months said he received an honorary doctorate from the “Prodeo Institute” at Columbia University, which does not exist. Fisher’s publicists clarified that he actually received the doctorate from the Catholic University of Rome, but that the ceremony took place at the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine—which is, you know, near Columbia.
Uh, yeah. Something tells us that the Dynamic Tower has exactly zero chance of ever getting built. But in the meantime, the videos of it undulating alongside the Palm Jumeirah sure are alluring.
Update: Dubai’s The National provides some tantalizing additional details about Fisher. Apparently he’s never heard of Buckminster Fuller?
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who the fuck cares! so it moves
Comment by bullshit — June 25, 2008, @ 8:36 pm
to Mason
and Elizabeth
Great find
H
Comment by Horace — June 25, 2008, @ 10:15 pm
how DARE he not be a celebri-techt!
Comment by David Savage — June 26, 2008, @ 12:18 pm
Metropolis Magazine must have hired a summer intern from Yale to write this article. In a climate of pre-election politics, character assassination is now the order of the day. I guess it’s trendy to dig into everyone’s past and ferret out some damning “evidence” of who’s-not-famous. If only that oversized monstrosity of David Childs’s Time Warner Center had twisting, or even better, magically folding in-on-itself capabilities so it would leave a sunny spot on Central Park once in a while. And since when does creativity requires a coherent and spotless curriculum vitae?
Based on this article it sounds like in order to come up with an innovative idea or project you have to be a child prodigy. Where are the Shirley Temples of architecture?
No matter if the project goes through for one “political” reason or another, I don’t think it’s illuminating to anyone to focus on Fisher’s dirty laundry or from where he matriculated. We should focus on the potentials of the project’s energy conservation and experimentation in new technology. Innovative ideas and experimentation in architecture are based on confrontation in order to stimulate thought and open up new avenues of the possible. The news of the project has been released, acclaimed and covered more than one year ago.
Finally someone is coming up with a new concept — even if it’s going to benefit a super-rich audience, at least it’s not another example of the boring, static and cheaply made glass shoeboxes with a fancy lobby that are popping up wildly day after day like mushrooms in Manhattan. While people get excited if some celebrity or unknown hipster in Chelsea gets to park his car on his apartment floor (see architect Annabelle Selldorf’s design for an automatic car elevator that takes tenants at 200 Eleventh Avenue directly to their apartments) I believe we should look at David Fisher’s project with a different eye of innovation. I personally don’t care about his tabloid mistress and I expect this magazine to cover the project in a more professional way related to architecture and design issues.
Comment by Andrea — June 26, 2008, @ 3:00 pm
sounds like they are going to build one in New York:
http://www.archiportale.com/News/schedanews.asp?idDoc=12159&IDCAT=3
Comment by Andrea — June 27, 2008, @ 10:48 am
Here’s a link to a page containing numerous videos, links to press releases
and other miscellaneous articles regarding this project:
http://www.agreatertown.com/40945_new_york_ny_preview_of_worlds_first_rotating_skyscraper
Comment by Drew Knapp — June 27, 2008, @ 11:43 am
Sounds like Tatlin’s Monument to the Third International
Comment by Elise — July 6, 2008, @ 10:03 pm
Well, David Fischer certainly does not sound like an Italian name…
Comment by gerry pellegrini — July 14, 2009, @ 7:19 pm