——_—_—_—_—_—_—S—S—S—_—_—_—_—EEE7——————————————— Theres remedy fo ths extreme ston, and wa coin not chon, set merely ofr raf he pt, with sane dela > fre, bg norman, sco REQUIEM FOR THE armen, motive and etl ngs och TWIN TOWERS nol depayment an rain. Lik the Gulf Wars a aon-event, an event that dacs not relly ake pa. And this indod i it an de: to subst, fora veal and formidable, unique and unforesce : able event, a repetitive, rehashed paewdo-event “The terrorist stack corresponded toa precedence ofthe event oer all interpretative model; where a this mindle mllay, tecnologia war co: responds, conversely, to the model's preceden over the even, and hence to a conflit ove phoney stakes, toa stuation of ‘no contest’, War a8 con: ‘ination of ths absence of polis by other meansSie ‘Aversion of thi paper was Boudrild’s cont bution to a debs on the events of September 1 200, the Rercontrespisophiques ute Atlantique’ organized jointly by Mew York University and France Culture in Washington Square, Manhatan The formal contributions were broadest on France Gite on the afte noon of February 232002. The debate, which ‘was egy conducted in French, was calted by om Bebop: ater participants were Jacques ance, Charles Larmore ond Mark Ul. The footnote, which refer to slight variatons Letween the wen tet andthe version deli rein Mew Yoo, ae my ov an) “The September 11 attacks ao concern architee- ture, since what was destroyed was one of the most prestigious of buildings, together with 2 hol (Western) valc-rystm anda word oder! 1 tte New York debt, Raid yc te si te ing omaha ae Bey ping oon se vn hat Irvin mnt citi {Soccer yc oy oer Dot nis pa maa ch igh poly fin tmacepabeas te eet are let tyme mgtn rmoreo e ea Ie may, then, be seul to begin with store and architect analysis of the Tin Towers, in onder to grasp the symbolic significance of thelr destruction, First ofall, why the Tria Towers? Why eno towers tthe Word Trade Center? All Manttan’s all buildings had bees con tent to conont eachother ina competitive ver. sical, and de product of this was an architec tural panorima reflecting the capitalist, 4 pyramidal jungle, whose famous mage stretched out before you at you arrived from the sea. That image changed after 1973, withthe buldng of the World Trade Center. The sflgy of de sytem was no longer the obelisk and the pyramid, but the punch card and the statist cal graph, This architectoral graphlsm isthe bodiment ofa system that no longer com petitive, but digital and countable, and from which competition has disappeared in favour of etworks and monopoly. Perfect parallelepiped, standing oer 1,300 {ect tall, on a square base. Perfectly balanced, ‘ind communicating vessels (they say terrorism is “Win, bat the towers were blind too monoliths to longer opening on to the outside world, but smbject to artical conditioning’). The fact that there were two of them signs the end of any original reference. If there had heen only one, monopoly would not have been perfectly ‘embodied. Only the doubling of the sig waly putsan end to what designates, There i particule fascination in this red plcation. However tall they may have been, the 2a New York, Bil aes “A id ing bt met cml.to towers sgifed, none the les, a hal overt cally, They were not of the same breed atthe ‘other buildings, They culminated in the exact reflection of sach other: The glass and steel facades of the Rockefeller Center buildings stil smironed each ther in an ees spculrty. But the Twin Towers no longer ad any fades, any faces, With the rhetori of verily disappears also the thetorc ofthe mirror. There remains ‘only a kind of Hack box, a series closed om the fg sre to, a thoggh arctecture, lke the system, ‘was now merely a product of cloning, and of 2 hangelese gente code [New Yorkie the only ety in the wor that dns, throughost it story, tracked the present form ofthe sytem and alls many developments then with such prodigious Adelity, We mu assume that the cllpse of the towers ~ ise nique event inthe history of modern cites — pre figures a kind of dramatic ending and, alli all, lisappesrance both of this form of architecture ane ofthe world system it embodies, Shaped i the pure computer image of banking and fiance, (acjountable and digital, they wore ina sense te ‘rain, and in striking there the terrorints have sgruck tthe brain, atthe nerve-cenre ofthe ss ‘The violence of globalization also involves _architecture, and hence the voknt protest agait ‘kalo involves che destruction of that architec: “ture, tn terms of cllotve drama, we can my that the borur for the 4,000 victims of dying in hone tomers was inseparable from the horror of living inthe ~ the horor of ling and working in cophgl of concrete and tel These architectural monsters, like the Beasboury Centre, hive aways exerted an ambigs “2a fescnaion, ax hae the extreme forms of mo: ‘erm technology in general contradictory felingof attraction and repulsion, and hence, some where, secret deste to ace them disappear Inthe case ofthe Twin Towers, something particular is added: terin-nese, There amity this cloning and precisely their symmetry and their perfect symmetry an aesthetic quality, a kind of perfect crime agsnst form, a tautlogy of form which can givers, in violent reaction tothe temptation to break that symmetry, to restore an asymmetry and hence a singularity. Their destruction self respected the symm try of the towers: a double tac, separated by 2 fev minutes interval, witha sense of suspense between the two impacts, After the first, one ‘ould ill believe twat an acident. Onl the see ond impact confirmed the terrorist attack, Ara in the Queens a rath 4 month ltr, the TV sti tions waited, staying with the tory (in France) for our hou ming to broadcast pombe second rath “lve. Since that did not occur, we shall ever know now sehetber It was an accident or a ‘The collipse ofthe towers isthe major sym “bolic event, Imagine they hs ‘only one had collapsed: the effect woul not have ‘ben the same at all. The fragt of global power not collipsed, oF would not have been so strikingly proven. The towers, which were the emblem ofthat power, still embody i i their dramatic end, which reerbles a suicide, Seeing them collapse them selves, aif hy implosion, one ad the impression that they were commiting suicide in response to th uci ofthe side planes. Were the Twin Towers destroyed, ordi they calls? Lotus he clear about this the 849 tow ‘ers are both a physical, architectural object and symbolic objec (ymbolic of financl power and 4 ta New Yak, Billed abl: mba in he weak sen, et bt, fra a.global economic lberalis). The architectural object was destroyel, but it was the symbolic ‘object which was targeted and which it was Intended to demolish, One might hink the ps ‘al destruction browt about the symbolic col- lapse, But in ict no one, not even the terrors, tad reckoned on the total destruction ofthe tow ers, Kwa, jn fc, thle symbolic collapse that brought about their physical cllapre, not the ther way around, Asif the power ering thee towers aenly lost all neg, all lence; a hough a aro- an poner snl gave wy wer the presse fo intense ft the ffort alway to be he nique word mode So the towers ered of beings symbol which tras too heavy a burden to bear collapsed, this ‘ime physically, n their totality. Their nerves of steel racked. They collapsed verily, drained of thir sent, wth he whe word looking on in anonisment. “The symbolic olpse came about, then, by a kind of unpredictable complicty — a though the cate sytem, by its internal fragility, joined in the game of iow lgidation, and hence joined sn the game of teroran, Very lolly and nex: ay, the ncrease nthe power of power height the wll to destroy it, But there bt more: somewhere, ¢ was party to own destruction “The counts dsster movies ar wines to hi fancaty, which they attempt to exorcize with tong and special fs, But the Fxcition hey sign that acting-out ix never very far away ~ the rejection of any system, including Anermal rejection, growing all the stronger a it approaches perfection or omnipotence. It has ‘been sid that “Even God cannot declare war on Himsclt? Wel, He ean, The West, in the postion of God (divine omnipotence and absolute morallegitimacy), has become suicidal, and declared war on el ven in ther flue, the terrorists woceeded beyond their wildest hopes: in bungling their tack onthe Whits House (hile succeeding far beyond their objectives on the towers), they demonstrated unirtntinally that that was not the estentil target, that politcal power no longer means much, and real powes where, Ax for whit should be but im place of ‘the towers the problem is insoluble, Quite sim- ply because one can imagine nothing equivalent that would be worth destroying ~ that would be ‘worthy of being destroyed, The Twin Towers ‘were worth destroying, One cannot ay the same ‘of many architectaral works, Most things are not ‘even worth destroying or scriiing, Only works ‘of prestige deserve that ft, for i san honour “This proposition isnot as paradoxical as it sounds, and irae a asic issue for architec ture: one should build only those things which, by their excellence, are worthy of being destroyed. Take a Took around with thi radical ‘Proposition in mind, and you wil see what pase we have come to, Not muck would withstand this extreme hypothesis ‘his brings us back to what should be the base question for architecture, which architects never formulate: is ft normal to build and con struct? In fat snot, and we should preserve the solute problematical character ofthe under taking, Undoubtedly, the tsk of architecture ~ of ood architecture — it effice itll to disappear as such, The tomers, for their par, have dsap- peared. But they have lef ws the symbol of thir Aisappearance, their disappearance as symbol, ‘They, which were the symbol of omnipotence, have become, by their absence, the sbal of the possible disappearance of that omnipotence — hich is perhaps an even more potent symbol‘Whatever becomes of that global omaipotence, it will ave been destroyed ere fora moment. Morcovr, although the two towers have dis appeared, they hte not been anniilte. Even in ‘thie pulverized sate, they have left behind an intense awarcnes of thelr presence. No-one who know them can cease imagining them and the Imprint they made on the skyline from all points ofthe ity, Their and in material space has borne ‘hem off into a deinive imaginary space. By the race of trrorina, the World Trade Center bas ‘become the work's mort Beautifl ullding ~ the cgth wonder ofthe wor? 44 ter dling gly odes of hi st porarph n Now York, Baile closed wit he omen So Ts tw proce «Rey, ba trae ina aTeDeam HYPOTHESES ON TERRORISM‘We may damis from the oust the hypothesis that September 11 constituted merely an scent or Incident onthe path toireverble globalization, An ‘ulimately despairing hypothe, since something ‘very extraordinary occurred there and to deny itis ‘0 admit that henceforth nothing an ever constitute am vent, that we are doomed to pay out the flaw Jes logic oa global power capable of absorbing any resistance, any antagonism, and even strength: ing ite by so doing ~ the terrorist act merely Instening the planetary ascendancy of a single power and singe way of thinkingCCounterposed to hi ze hypothesis isthe maximal one, the maxinal gamble onthe character of September 11 at erent — event being defined hore as that which, is system of generalized exchange, suddenly creates zone of imposible exchange: the impose exchange of death at the heart of the event self, and the impossible xchange of tht even for any course whatever ence its symbolic potency, and it this symbolic potency which strack we all in the Mankatan According to the zu hypothess, the terrorist, ‘vent i insignificant, ought not to have existed ad, basally st does mx exist. This ose things in erm of thes that Evie mete illsion oan accidental vicstude nthe trajectory of Goodin this cme, the tsectory ofthe World Order anda happy Globaliation. Theology has always bated ‘self on this unrest o Evil as such. PELTEET CELE T Tee Ee Another hypothesis: it wat an act of scat madmen, psychopaths, fanatics of a perverted ‘tos, themselves manipulated by some xi power, hich is merely exploiting the resentment and ‘mre of oppressed peoples to sate it destructive rage, The same hypothesis — ut more favourably Pt and attempting to lend terrorim akin of is ‘torical atonle —is the one dha ces it asthe rest _expresion ofthe despair of oppressed poops. Bat ‘his argument i elf espet, since it condemns terroriam to represent global misery only ina def itive gesture of impotence, And even itis ranted that terrorism a pei orm of political contes- {ation ofthe global onde, this i generally done only to denounce its falure and, atthe same time, its unintended effect, which involuntarily to consol- ‘ate that order. Thi isthe version advanced by ‘Arundhati Roy who, wile denouncing hegemonic ‘power, denounces terrorism a ts twin the din Dolcal twin ofthe system, A smal tp, then, to imagine tht i terror di not exis the system‘would hive invented And wy not, then, se the September 1 attackeat a CIA stunt? Here again th a muppote tht ll oppo valence i ultimately complicit with the exiting conde. ei to squall dhe intentions ofthe actors, ae the very takes fae action, It to eda hat exon to tbe sonseunce (te geopical consequences of Septenber 1), and never to etn terms fs own potency. Ad, anyway, whos manip- sing whom? Who k playing the oer game? In this cnet ju rch te terrorists who profit by ‘the ahance ofthe syst, inorder themselies to gan omer, na race along rll racks in which the two ‘ponents, contrary to what happened in cls con ‘ct and historia ware, never actly met. We should go even further: rather than the Iypothess ofan ‘objective’ complicity hetween er ‘osm andthe world oder, we should advance the ‘xactly opposite hypothesis ofa deep internal com Tr SERCERe TTT re Crt rere reer rrr reer terres plicty between tht power and the power ranged ‘against it from th outside ofan ternal instability and weakness which, fs sense, meet the violent esabilation ofthe terrorist act alway Without ‘he hypothesis of thi secret coalition, this collusive predisposition, one can understand nothing of ter ‘orism andthe impositility of onercoming i. AE the am of terror ito destabilize the global order merely by its own strength, ina head-on lash then it is absurd: he reliton of forces iso cq and, in any cs, tht global orders already {hei of uch disorder and deregulation that here {00 pint whatever in adding. One even rns hea, by this ain oder, of enforcing the police and security control systems, a we see onal ides ody, But perhaps tat is the terrorists dream: the ream of an immortal enemy. For, ithe enemy no ssTonge exits, bes ditt dest, A tautology, addy, bt terran stl, and its conlson prada log: if the Ste ely exited, would give pal meaning to terror, Since terrorism manly has noe (though thas termes), thi proof hat the State doe ot exit. ad hatte power i derior. ‘What, then, the terrorists secret message? In a [Nason story, we se him crowing the frontier ‘ach dy with mules Iden with acs. Each time, ‘the sacks are searched, but nothing s found, And Nasredin continues to crt the frontier with his mules, Lang ftersady they aki what in ft it vase was amugaing, And Nasreddin replies ‘1 ‘war smuggling mus? nth same way, we may wonder what itis that {neal being smuggled ere, behind all he appar: fent_motives for the terrorist act ~ religion, ‘martyedom, vengeance or strategy? It is quite simply, through what seems tous ike a uid, the imposible exchange of death, the challenge tothe system by the symbolic gift of death, which becomes an abolute weapon (the Towers sem to have understood this, since they responded with {het own calls). “This the amerign hypothesis tervorem ult ‘mately has no meaning, no objective, ad cant be _mcasured byt ‘el political and historia conse- ‘quences. And ii, paradoxically, ecwuse has no meaning that i constitutes an erent in & workd Increasingly saturated with meaning and fey. “The sovereign hypothesis i the one that com caves of teroriam, beyond it spectaculivokncs, beyond Blam and Ameria, a the emergence of « radical antagonist atthe very heart ofthe process of globalization, of force iredicble to thi inte- gal technical and mental realisation ofthe word,