Old Man of Glass

For thousands of years, New Hampshire’s Old Man of the Mountain proudly stared out over Profile Lake in the White Mountains. Notables from Nathaniel Hawthorne to Presidents Grant and Eisenhower journeyed to gape at the series of five granite ledges, that, when viewed from the right angle, looked like the profile a craggy old man.

Finally, a late spring snowfall plus millennia of erosion and famously crappy New Hampshire weather caused the Old Man to collapse in 2003. Mourners left flowers for the fallen stone face, and even The Simpsons paid tribute in the form of parody.

Well, New Hampshire, the time has come to dry your tears and look forward to Old Man of the Mountain 2.0: Award-winning architect Francis D. Treves, of Princeton, N.J., has proposed building a glass replica of the Old Man in its original spot. Made of 250 glass panels, visitors would now actually be able to go inside the Old Man’s head and share his view over the valley.

The image could redefine man’s relationship with technology and nature’s grandness in the 21st century. Treves says his proposed 45-foot glass likeness could also become a tourist attraction of the magnitude of the Statue of Liberty, Mount Rushmore and the Gateway Arch in St. Louis.

“I want to sit down with people with a real interest in the possibility and talk our way through it,” Treves said.

One look at the comments section in New Hampshire’s Union-Ledger paper seems to indicate that New Hampshire natives aren’t really in a talking mood: “no, no, no!!!” “With all due respect to the artist, please go away”; “build it in New Jersey or France where it will be appreciated.”

Ouch.

—Ted Alvarez

Designer: Replace old man with walk-in replica (Union-Leader)

Via GoBlog