Up from Zero

GAMBIER, Ohio (October 27, 2004) Noted architecture critic Paul Goldberger will sign copies of his new book, Up from Zero: Politics, Architecture, and the Rebuilding of New York, on Friday, October 29, from 3:00 to 4:00 p.m. at the Kenyon College Bookstore. Copies of the book will be for sale at the bookstore before and during the event.

Published by Random House in September of this year, the critically acclaimed Up from Zero describes the three years of proposals and counterproposals that resulted in a redevelopment plan for the sixteen-acre site, known as Ground Zero, where the twin towers of the World Trade Center stood before September 11, 2001. Although Goldberger offers a largely dispassionate description of the people and events that have shaped the plan, he mourns the lost opportunity to diverge from New York City's traditional approach to real-estate development.

"What played out through 2002 and 2003 was the use of architecture for political ends, not the use of politics for architectural ends: that is the key moral of the story," Goldberger writes. "Idealism met cynicism at Ground Zero, and so far they have battled to a draw."

Goldberger served for many years as a staff member at the New York Times, winning a Pulitzer Prize in 1984 for his architecture criticism. In 1997, he became the architecture critic for The New Yorker, where he writes the "Sky Line" column that was once the domain of such legendary critics as Lewis Mumford and Brendan Gill.

A graduate of Yale University, Goldberger is a current member of Kenyon's Board of Trustees and a former member of the College's Parents Advisory Council. His son Benjamin Goldberger is a 2004 graduate of Kenyon.