The new plan which comes after months of contentious
negotiations between designers Daniel Libeskind and David
Childs retains many elements of Libeskind's original plan
but appears to smooth out its most angular elements.
At a news conference to unveil the design, Childs said the
tower must be "simple and pure in its form, a memorable form
that will reclaim the resilience and the spirit of our
democracy."
Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the tower which planners
said would be the world's tallest would "dramatically
reclaim a part of the New York City skyline that was lost on
9-11."
"This is a wonderful day, not just for New York, but for
America," said Bloomberg, who appeared with the architects and
Gov. George Pataki to unveil the new design.
The cost is estimated at $1.5 billion, said Charles
Gargano, vice chairman of the Port Authority of New York and
New Jersey, the public agency that owns the site.
Gargano said the Port Authority, which had headquarters in
the World Trade Center, plans to occupy one-third of the
building's office space. The governor's Manhattan offices will
also be located in the tower.
The plan follows the original, asymmetrical structure
proposed by Libeskind, who was originally tapped as the
architect to remake ground zero by the Lower Manhattan
Development Corp., the agency charged with redevelopment.
But Childs, who was appointed by leaseholder Larry
Silverstein, succeeded in including a lattice structure filled
with energy-generating windmills at the top of the building.
Childs likened the suspension elements of the new design to
the Brooklyn Bridge, with the bottom of the building "torqued
or twisted."
The building is to be put up on the northwest part off the
World Trade Center site, not on the footprint of the vanished
towers.
The plan calls for a cable suspension structure that
creates an open area above the building's 70 floors of office
space, and houses windmills to generate energy. The windmills
could provide 20 percent of the building's energy.
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; it is also very practical," Silverstein said.
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.
Taiwan's Taipei 101 tower, 1,676 feet tall, recently
supplanted Malaysia's 1,483-foot Petronas Twin Towers as the
tallest building in the world when crews completed installing
the pinnacle. The 110-story World Trade Center towers were
1,350 feet tall.
Despite persistent reports of conflict between the two
designers, Childs told NBC's "Today" show they had "a
spectacular time working together. ... Creative minds have
different thoughts about how you do things. I wouldn't want to
work with somebody who would just say yes."
Added Pataki: "This represents a melding of two very, very
talented, creative geniuses."
Negotiations had been contentious between the two
architects. Libeskind, who created the Jewish Museum in Berlin
but has little experience with major commercial projects, once
compared the relationship with Childs, who designed the new
Time Warner building in Manhattan, to a "forced marriage."
Several safety features were included in the design, such
as separate staircases for firefighters and "blast-resistant
glaze" on the lobby glass.
Richard Meier, an architect who was a finalist for the
trade center design competition won by Libeskind, questioned
the timetable set by redevelopment officials, who want
construction on the tower to begin next summer before the
national Republican convention begins.
"We're not just talking about a building here; we're
talking about a large area of the city that's being developed
and there's a relationship between this new building and
everything else that's going on," Meier said. "If the rest of
this site is developed this way, it's going to be chaotic."
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On the Net:
Lower Manhattan Development Corp.: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/ap/ap_on_re_us/storytext/SIG=dt72kv/*http://www.renewnyc.org
