On the morning of September 11, 2001, two hijacked commercial jetliners struck the Twin Towers in Lower Manhattan, a third plane struck the Pentagon, and a fourth crashed in rural Pennsylvania. A total of 2.977 people were killed in the terrorist attacks. In the face of this unprecedented loss, the city of New York promised to rebuild Lower Manhattan as a lively neighborhood while honoring and maintaining the memory of this day. Thus began one of the largest reconstruction projects in New York City, a process that is still ongoing now, 23 years after the tragedy.
After over two decades in the making, the Perelman Performing Arts Center opened to the public on September 19, 2023. The luminous cube-shaped building was designed by the architecture firm REX, led by Joshua Ramus, to become one of New York City’s cultural keystones and the final piece in the 2023 Master Plan for the rebuilding of the 16-acre World Trade Center site. The inaugural season will feature commissions, world premieres, co-productions, and collaborative work across theater, dance, music, opera, film, and more. While only eight stories high, the venue stands out due to its monolithic façade composed of translucent veined Portuguese marble.
The new design for Foster + Partners’ Two World Trade Center tower builds in the footprint of its original design, but has scrapped a fractal diamond crown for staggered volumes and green roofs. The tallest roof will reach about 1,350 feet. . Image Courtesy of Visualhouse
Is the third time truly the charm for Two World Trade Center? New renderings spotted by New York YIMBY on February 1 seem to reveal the long-delayed tower’s new look, a marked departure from what was first unveiled by Foster + Partners back in 2005.
That’s not too much of a surprise. Although Foster + Partners was awarded the project 17 years ago and the foundation was laid in 2013, work has been proceeding at a slow clip and the original team was replaced by BIG in 2015 after developer Silverstein Properties decided to take a more contemporary approach and position the tower as the future home of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation and 21st Century Fox.
SPEECH has designed a proposal for the World Trade Centre (WTC), in Moscow, Russia, one of the largest and oldest mixed-use business complexes built initially in 1980. The suggested project introduces two glass blocks to the city’s skyline, featuring mixed-use functions such as offices, cafés, and shops.
125 Greenwich Street. Image Courtesy of Bizzi & Partners
Rafael Viñoly's 125 Greenwich Street skyscraper in downtown Manhattan has topped out. The 912-foot-tall luxury condominium skyscraper was designed as a slender structure with exposed concrete columns. Rising 88 storys, the project includes a curved glass façade to enhance the panoramic views of the Hudson River, the Statue of Liberty, the World Trade Center Complex, and the New York City skyline.
The World Trade Center site is to create a memorial honoring the thousands of people who have been affected by illnesses related to the September 11th, 2001 terror attacks in New York City. As reported by Curbed NY via The New York Post, the Memorial Glade site will honor rescue, recovery, and relief works as well as survivors and downtown residents who got sick or died from 9/11-related illnesses.
The tribute, designed by 9/11 memorial architects Michael Arad and Peter Walker, will include a path lined with six granite slabs pointed towards the sky. According to the museum, the 17.5 ton stone monoliths “are worn, but not beaten, symbolizing strength and determination through adversity.” The pieces will also incorporate steel fragments from the World Trade Center.
https://www.archdaily.com/910788/world-trade-center-site-to-create-memorial-to-those-affected-by-9-11-related-illnessesNiall Patrick Walsh
PLP Architecture’s Tower Ten, the new expansion of the World Trade Center Amsterdam, officially began construction last week. The ground breaking ceremony was launched by deputy director Sandra Thesing of the City of Amsterdam and Ronald van der Waals of CBRE Global Investors. Located in the Zuidas central business district, the project will create a radically different appearance from its predecessor, adding 32,000 sqm of new office space and amenities in the process.
The opening of the World Trade Center Transportation Hub's Oculus will take a rain check on the 17th anniversary of 9/11, according to Steve Coleman, a spokesperson for the Port Authority. Designed by Santiago Calatrava, the 335-foot-long skylight was designed to allow the “Way of Light” to pass through the main hub of the transit hall at 10:28 a.m.—the moment that the North Tower of the WTC collapsed on September 11, 2001. Symbolizing the light that continues to shine through after the darkness of the tragedy, the Oculus opening allows light to fill the massive space as a memorial to the attacks on the twin towers.
3 World Trade Center, designed by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, has opened for business in Lower Manhattan, New York City. At 1079 feet tall, and 80 floors, the scheme is the fifth-highest in New York, and the penultimate tower to be opened on the World Trade Center site. Construction of the tower saw over 4,000 union workers apply millions of hours.
After funding issues threatened to halt the project last year, plans for the Ronald O. Perelman Performing Arts Center at the World Trade Center are now back on track after an agreement made between the venue and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
Construction on the Santiago Calatrava-designed St. Nicholas National Shrine at the World Trade Center has halted, after the church failed to make a series of payments over a several month period to contractor Skanska.
As revealed by the Pappas Post, last week the construction company distributed a letter to its subcontractors informing them that the building contract had been terminated after The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America defaulted on making payment. In the letter, Skanska directed subcontractors to stop all work and to remove all tools and materials from the site, or risk not being able to recover them.
The lawsuit states that the 104-story One World Trade bears a “striking similarity” to his 122-story “Cityfront ‘99” tower, which also featured a glass facade of inverted triangular planes.
https://www.archdaily.com/873750/architect-sues-som-for-stealing-one-world-trade-center-designAD Editorial Team
The international Summer School will take place in Brussels from from August 26th to September 2nd. Forty students and recently graduated architects will be invited to rethink the future of the office buildings, products of the real estate boom of the 1960s. Participants will be led by four talented architects: Piovenefabi (Milan), Gafpa (Ghent), Something Fantastic (Berlin) and Dyvik Kahlen (London).
"You see, the first goal in this place was to deliver something beautiful where such an ugliness was there before,” says Calatrava in the film. “To deliver something optimistic looking to the future where so much sadness and depression was there.”
The Byzantine-styled structure was envisioned by Calatrava in 2013 as a non-denominational spiritual center to replace the original St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, located at 155 Cedar Street, which was destroyed on 9/11.
More than a billion people watched the 9/11 World Trade Center destruction unfold on television, making it the greatest shared event in world history. Reflecting this fact, the 2003 World Trade Center Memorial Design Competition was open to anyone, drawing 5,201 entries from 60 countries, all of which were posted online.
On the 15th anniversary of 9/11 yesterday, the skylights at Santiago Calatrava’s Oculus at the World Trade Center opened for the first time, allowing light to fill the massive space as a memorial to the attacks on the twin towers. Following the masterplan laid out by Daniel Libeskind, Calatrava’s design used the angle of light as a guiding principle for orienting the transportation hub – so that at precisely 10:28 am each September 11th (the time of the collapse of the North Tower), a beam of light would pass through the opening in the roof and project all the way down the center of the Oculus floor.
_(003).jpg?1528735177 "© Joe Woolhead")
