What An Old Sandra Bullock/Keanu Reeves Turkey Has To Do With This Lawsuit Against One World Trade Center

By Stephen Gossett in News on Jun 21, 2017 9:20PM

In further proof that these are indeed very strange times, a lawsuit filed against the designers of the tallest building in Western hemisphere invokes a thoroughly reviled Sandra Bullock/Keanu Reeves flick (definitely not Speed) as part of its case.

As the New York Post reported last week, Jeehoon Park is suing the venerable Skidmore, Owings & Merrill firm on the grounds that One World Trade Center apes Park's graduate-thesis design, which he came up with as a student while attending the Illinois Institute of Technology, in Chicago. A "striking similarity" exists between the designs, according to the lawsuit, which seeks undisclosed damages.

Take a peek below to compare.

Former Chicago architecture student says firm stole One World Trade Center design from his IIT thesis https://t.co/fV8iLhjOWJ pic.twitter.com/SlWRgCIdB8

— Chicago Tribune (@chicagotribune) June 21, 2017

Now, how the design may have allegedly ripped off is even more brow-furrowing than the charge itself. The lawsuit reportedly alleges that SOM could have noticed Park's design because it was featured in the largely forgotten 2006 turkey The Lake House, starring Reeves and Bullock. A scene that included the design was apparently even filmed “in the main lobby of the building where SOM’s Chicago office was located," the lawsuit notes, according to the Post.

That raises two red flags: one, it assumes that anyone saw The Lake House; two, as Curbed NY points out, renderings for OWT came out a year before the movie was released. Although if production was already stomping around that office... Park's design was also on display for several years at his alma mater in the early 2000s, so would-be concept-thieves could have conceivably taken a peek there.

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, for their part, isn't buying it, especially considering how much time has passed. "This lawsuit... is particularly suspect, because [Park] is filing suit in June of 2017 about a design that was first unveiled publicly in June 2005 and that was completed and leased in 2013," SOM spokesperson Elizabeth Kubany has said in a statement to media.

[H/T Tribune]