Architectural Projects: Remembering World Trade Center

In this article, I’ll be short reviewing the different stages through which passed the execution of an immortal project across the eras and one of the architectural projects icons of all time, in the whole World: the World Trade Center of New York. As a tribute to this wonderful construction ever, destroyed and vanished by terrorist attacks in 2001, I dedicated this post.

The iconic twin towers of downtown Manhattan- Image Source: https://i.pinimg.com

In 1968, the world's tallest architectural building rose in the middle of New York City: The World Trade Center. Also known as the Twin Towers, it was a complex of seven buildings in Lower Manhattan in New York City. The original Twin Towers (North Tower and South Tower) were completed in 1972 and 1973 respectively. Both towers stood at 1,368 feet (417 m) with 110 stories. The North Tower was home to commercial and retail stores. The South Tower housed offices for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which manages the site and its surroundings.

They were two enormous tall skyscrapers in Lower Manhattan, in New York City. They were part of a complex called the World Trade Center. Unfortunately, the two buildings were entirely destroyed on September 11, 2001, by terrorist attacks. They were one of the best architectural buildings in the world at this time. They were tracing the New York skyline in a unique way, no other city could define.

A Remarkable Architectural Project in the World Ever!

Since my early years, as I was born in the ’70s of the last century, my eyes were fascinated by those architectural projects and ultra-terrestrial edifices, if I can say at that time; They were featured anywhere that would have related to the future and whatever within its orbit would be.

And why it cannot be? It was the first and the tallest building ever built in human history. In one word, it was a remarkable architectural project ever!

Fig. 1- The original landscape of the site, featuring the 7 WTC towers before being destroyed in 2001, Source: Wikipedia

The original World Trade Center was an architectural project complex of seven buildings (see fig.1) featuring landmark twin towers in Lower Manhattan, New York City, United States. The site, formerly referred to as "world trade center ground zero" or "the Pile" immediately after the September 11 attacks, was first opened on April 4th, 1973, and was destroyed in 2001 during the September 11th attacks.

The iconic twin towers of downtown Manhattan’s World Trade Center were a triumph of human imagination and will. Completed in 1973, the towers stood at 110 stories each, accommodating 50,000 workers and 200,000 daily visitors in 10 million square feet of space.

They were the hub of the bustling Financial District, a top tourist attraction, and a symbol of New York City’s–and later America’s–steadfast devotion to progress and the future.

A Brief History of the World Trade Center

After the attacks, the site is being rebuilt with five new skyscrapers and a memorial to the casualties of the attacks (see Fig. 2).

Fig. 2- The Preliminary proposal site renewal after the September 11th attacks, featuring the Memorial Remembering right 

in place of the destroyed Towers, Photo-Source: Wikipedia

Only one skyscraper has been completed with four more expected to be completed before 2020. A sixth tower is still awaiting confirmation to be built. At the time of their completion, the original 1 and 2 World Trade Centers were the tallest buildings in the world, surpassing the Empire State Building, constructed in 1931 also in Manhattan.

The complex was designed in the early 1960s by Minoru Yamasaki and Associates of Troy, Michigan, and Emery Roth and Sons of New York. The twin 110-story towers used a tube-frame structural design.

To gain approval for the project, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey agreed to take over the Hudson & Manhattan Railroad, which became the Port Authority Trans-Hudson (PATH). The groundbreaking ceremony for the World Trade Center took place on August 5, 1966.

The North Tower (1) was completed in December 1972 and the South Tower (2) was finished in July 1973. The construction project involved excavating a large amount of material, which was later used as a landfill to build Battery Park City on the west side of Lower Manhattan.

➤ Read more: Refer to a previous article on my blog untitled: 8 Best Worldwide Architectural Projects in 2016 (with Images) featuring the One World Trade Center as one of the 8 best worldwide architectural projects in the year 2016.

The building experienced a fire on February 13, 1975, and a bombing on February 26, 1993. In 1998, the Port Authority decided to privatize the World Trade Center, leasing the buildings to a private company to manage and awarded the lease to Silverstein Properties in July 2001.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, Al-Qaeda-affiliated hijackers flew two 767 jets into the complex, one into each tower, in a coordinated terrorist attack. After burning for 56 minutes, the South Tower (2) collapsed, followed a half-hour later by the North Tower (1), with the attacks on the World Trade Center resulting in 2,753 deaths.

Fig. 4- The site as it appeared in 2012: The pools lie on the approximate site of each twin tower. The left is the North Tower and the right is the South Tower, Photo Source: Wikipedia 

7 World Trade Center collapsed later in the day and the other buildings, although they did not collapse, had to be demolished because they were damaged beyond repair. However, the process of cleanup and recovery at the World Trade Center site took eight months. The first new building at the site was the 7 World Trade Center, which opened in May 2006.

World Trade Center Building Specifications

When the towers were finished, (Fig. 3) each one would have 97 passenger elevators, capable of carrying loads of up to 10,000 pounds at speeds of up to 1,600 feet per minute. In all, the towers were assembled from more than 200,000 pieces of steel manufactured around the country, 3,000 miles of electrical wiring, 425,000 cubic yards of concrete, 40,000 doors, 43,600 windows, and six acres of marble.

Fig. 3- The original WTC complex, Source: Wikipedia

The cost for the construction was $400 million ($2,169,167,354 in 2011 dollars). The complex was located in the heart of New York City's downtown financial district and contained 13.4 million square feet (1.24 million m2) of office space.

The Windows on the World restaurant was located on the 106th and 107th floors of 1 World Trade Center (the North Tower) while the Top of the World observation deck was located on the 107th floor of 2 World Trade Center (the South Tower).

Other buildings of the Center included the Marriott World Trade Center; 4 World Trade Center; 5 World Trade Center; 6 World Trade Center, which housed the United States Customs. All of these buildings were built between 1975 and 1981. The final building constructed was the 7 World Trade Center, which was finished in 1985. The second King Kong was filmed in 1976 with some scenes mentioning and showing the World Trade Center.

The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC), established in November 2001 to oversee the rebuilding process, organized competitions to select a site plan and memorial design.

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Memory Foundations, designed by Daniel Libeskind, was selected as the master plan, which included the 1,776-foot (541 m) One World Trade Center, three office towers along Church Street, and a memorial (see Fig. 2 & 4) designed by Michael Arad, an Israeli-American young Architect, consists of a field of trees interrupted by the footprints of the twin towers.

Pools of water fill the footprints, underneath which sits a memorial space whose walls bear the names of the victims.

The WTC before the September 11th attacks- Image Source: https://americanmusclecar.wordpress.com

Following is a graphical comparison table schedule of the 20 tallest architectural buildings on the planet until the year 2020. Enjoy!

Illustrated List of the 20 tallest buildings in the world

Main References:

1- en.wikipedia.org (the Internet Encyclopedia)

2- history.com

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