Jenya
12-20-2003, 04:48 PM
Freedom Tower Chosen To Rise From WTC Ashes
Completion Date: 2009
Saturday, December 20, 2003
ASSOCIATE PRESS (http://www.ap.org/)
NEW YORK - Planners for a new tower at the World Trade Center presented their final design yesterday for what they called the world's tallest building.
The blueprint for Freedom Tower shows a building that will peak at 1,776 feet (just over 541 metres), symbolically coinciding with the year of the American declaration of independence.
But it will have only 72 floors and an observation deck, compared to the 110 floors of the WTC's two towers, which soared to 411 metres.
Then criss-crossed steel beams and a broadcast antenna will rise several hundred additional metres into the air.
Even with its latticed superstructure, Freedom Tower will fall 12 metres short of the CN Tower in Toronto, Ontario Canada. The world's tallest freestanding structure.
The new design comes after months of feuding between architects Daniel Libeskind, whose master plan for Ground Zero was picked earlier this year, and David Childs, appointed by the site developer Larry Silverstein.
Staffers at the architectural firm where Mr. Childs works at one point complained of a Watergate-style break-in by people working for Mr. Libeskind, whose team includes his Canadian wife, Nina.
Reports citing Mr. Childs' staffers said Mr. Libeskind's representatives entered their office at night on Dec. 4, snapping photographs and taking documents.
Next day, Mr. Libeskind allegedly used the documentation in a meeting with George Pataki, the Governor of New York state, to support his argument that Mr. Childs was ignoring him.
Last week, Mr. Pataki gave the pair until Monday this week to come to an agreement. They complied.
"This represents a melding of two very, very talented, creative geniuses," the Governor said at the unveiling.
The new plan follows the original, asymmetrical structure proposed by Mr. Libeskind, but Mr. Childs has continued a lattice structure filled with windmills at the top of the tower. The windmills will provide 20% of the building's energy.
Several safety features are included in the design, such as separate staircases for firefighters and "blast-resistant glaze" on the lobby glass.
Viewers of NBC's Today show got the first peek at the new plan at 8 a.m. yesterday, when Mr. Pataki and the architects showed off a computer animation of the building.
They were joined by Michael Bloomberg, the New York Mayor, when they displayed a model of the building an hour later at Federal Hall on Wall Street, near Ground Zero.
Mr. Bloomberg said the tower would "dramatically reclaim a part of the New York City skyline that was lost on 9-11."
It will be built on the northwest part of the World Trade Center site, not on the footprint of the vanished towers, which is reserved for a memorial.
Mr. Silverstein, often a silent presence at redevelopment announcements, said he was emotionally moved by both the design and the process of creating it.
"What we see today is, in my judgment, beautiful. It's spectacular," he said. "It is also very practical."
He has promised to build one new skyscraper at the site each year after the expected completion of the Freedom Tower in 2009, finishing the five-building complex in 2013. He brought in Mr. Childs after being unhappy with the amount of office space originally allocated by Mr. Libeskind, who created the Jewish Museum in Berlin.
Mr. Libeskind, who oversaw the multi-million-dollar addition to Toronto's Royal Ontario Museum, has said the shape of the tower echoes that of the Statue of Liberty, which lies in its shadow in New York Harbour.
Mr. Childs likened the suspension elements of the new design to the Brooklyn Bridge, with the bottom of the building "torqued or twisted" to represent of destruction caused on Sept. 11, 2001.
The current tallest building in the world is Taiwan's Taipei 101 tower, almost 511 metres tall. It recently supplanted Malaysia's 452-metre Petronas Twin Towers after crews completed installing the pinnacle.
http://images.theglobeandmail.com/archives/RTGAM/images/20031219/wtower1219/1219tower2.jpg
AP Photo
Reclaiming the skyline: Architects
Daniel Libeskind and David Childs yesterday
revealed their plan for Freedom Tower, the
pinnacle of the World Trade Center
redevelopment. It is to be the second-tallest
building in the world.
Completion Date: 2009
Saturday, December 20, 2003
ASSOCIATE PRESS (http://www.ap.org/)
NEW YORK - Planners for a new tower at the World Trade Center presented their final design yesterday for what they called the world's tallest building.
The blueprint for Freedom Tower shows a building that will peak at 1,776 feet (just over 541 metres), symbolically coinciding with the year of the American declaration of independence.
But it will have only 72 floors and an observation deck, compared to the 110 floors of the WTC's two towers, which soared to 411 metres.
Then criss-crossed steel beams and a broadcast antenna will rise several hundred additional metres into the air.
Even with its latticed superstructure, Freedom Tower will fall 12 metres short of the CN Tower in Toronto, Ontario Canada. The world's tallest freestanding structure.
The new design comes after months of feuding between architects Daniel Libeskind, whose master plan for Ground Zero was picked earlier this year, and David Childs, appointed by the site developer Larry Silverstein.
Staffers at the architectural firm where Mr. Childs works at one point complained of a Watergate-style break-in by people working for Mr. Libeskind, whose team includes his Canadian wife, Nina.
Reports citing Mr. Childs' staffers said Mr. Libeskind's representatives entered their office at night on Dec. 4, snapping photographs and taking documents.
Next day, Mr. Libeskind allegedly used the documentation in a meeting with George Pataki, the Governor of New York state, to support his argument that Mr. Childs was ignoring him.
Last week, Mr. Pataki gave the pair until Monday this week to come to an agreement. They complied.
"This represents a melding of two very, very talented, creative geniuses," the Governor said at the unveiling.
The new plan follows the original, asymmetrical structure proposed by Mr. Libeskind, but Mr. Childs has continued a lattice structure filled with windmills at the top of the tower. The windmills will provide 20% of the building's energy.
Several safety features are included in the design, such as separate staircases for firefighters and "blast-resistant glaze" on the lobby glass.
Viewers of NBC's Today show got the first peek at the new plan at 8 a.m. yesterday, when Mr. Pataki and the architects showed off a computer animation of the building.
They were joined by Michael Bloomberg, the New York Mayor, when they displayed a model of the building an hour later at Federal Hall on Wall Street, near Ground Zero.
Mr. Bloomberg said the tower would "dramatically reclaim a part of the New York City skyline that was lost on 9-11."
It will be built on the northwest part of the World Trade Center site, not on the footprint of the vanished towers, which is reserved for a memorial.
Mr. Silverstein, often a silent presence at redevelopment announcements, said he was emotionally moved by both the design and the process of creating it.
"What we see today is, in my judgment, beautiful. It's spectacular," he said. "It is also very practical."
He has promised to build one new skyscraper at the site each year after the expected completion of the Freedom Tower in 2009, finishing the five-building complex in 2013. He brought in Mr. Childs after being unhappy with the amount of office space originally allocated by Mr. Libeskind, who created the Jewish Museum in Berlin.
Mr. Libeskind, who oversaw the multi-million-dollar addition to Toronto's Royal Ontario Museum, has said the shape of the tower echoes that of the Statue of Liberty, which lies in its shadow in New York Harbour.
Mr. Childs likened the suspension elements of the new design to the Brooklyn Bridge, with the bottom of the building "torqued or twisted" to represent of destruction caused on Sept. 11, 2001.
The current tallest building in the world is Taiwan's Taipei 101 tower, almost 511 metres tall. It recently supplanted Malaysia's 452-metre Petronas Twin Towers after crews completed installing the pinnacle.
http://images.theglobeandmail.com/archives/RTGAM/images/20031219/wtower1219/1219tower2.jpg
AP Photo
Reclaiming the skyline: Architects
Daniel Libeskind and David Childs yesterday
revealed their plan for Freedom Tower, the
pinnacle of the World Trade Center
redevelopment. It is to be the second-tallest
building in the world.