Winning
the WTC Competition: Penn Architects
The
winning design for rebuilding
Ground
Zero
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The
plan chosen for the World Trade Center
(WTC) site, was designed by Penn architects
Daniel Libeskind, the Paul Philippe
Cret Professor of Architecture and
principal architect of Studio Daniel
Libeskind, and Dr. Gary Hack, dean
and Paley Professor, GSFA and chairman
of the Philadelphia City Planning Commission.
Professor Libeskind is perhaps best
known for the Jewish Museum in Berlin
where he based the building's design
on a fractured Star of David, which
symbolizes the Holocaust and Jewish
life in Germany.
The
Libeskind design for New York City
was chosen over the Think team's design,
led by architect Rafael Viñoly,
designer of the Kimmel Center for the
Performing Arts in Philadelphia.
The
Studio Daniel Libeskind design called "Memory
Foundations," is a group of five
shard-like glass buildings containing
a 1,776-foot spire. The selection is
the culmination of a process that began
last spring. The design was chosen
from a group of seven proposals submitted
to the international competition in
early December. In mid-December the
field was narrowed to two finalists
and the winner was announced last Thursday
at a news conference at the World Financial
Center's Winter Garden adjacent to
Ground Zero, by a committee with representatives
of the Lower Manhattan Development
Corp., the Port Authority of New York
and New Jersey, New York Governor George
E. Pataki, and New York City Mayor
Michael Bloomberg.
The
design of five buildings will surround
two deep pits that are all that remain
of the original twin towers. A memorial
will be erected on this part of the
site, some 30 feet below ground level.
The spire will contain "Gardens
of the World" at the top. The
1,776 foot spire will make the building
the tallest in the world surpassing
the Petronas Towers in Malaysia by
293 feet. A separate competition will
be held in this spring for the design
of the memorial.
Memory
Foundations arranges the buildings
so that on September 11 of each year,
a ray of sunlight will illuminate the
site from 8:46 a.m. until 10:28 a.m.
as a remembrance of when the original
towers were attacked on September 11,
2001.
The
project is expected to take 10-12 years
to complete and the flexible design
will provide for about 8.5 million
square feet of office space. Current
project cost estimates are $330 million.
More
photos of the winning design
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