WTC Tower To Be Tallest Building

The Times reveals that the main building of the redesigned WTC will vastly different from Daniel Libeskind's design. The new design, from tower architect David Childs and engineer Guy Nordensen, will be revealed next week by Governor George Pataki. Times reporter David Dunlap's description:

Those who have seen the design of the Freedom Tower, as Mr. Pataki calls it, describe a torqued and tapering form culminating in an unoccupied, open-air structure filled with cables, trusses, antennas and � recalling the energy source that helped settle Lower Manhattan 350 years ago � windmills that may generate 20 percent of the electrical power needed by the building.

The 70-story occupied part of the Freedom Tower would rise 1,000 to 1,100 feet, more than 200 feet shorter than the twin towers. But the open-air structure would reach 1,776 feet, exceeding Taipei 101, which is being built on Taiwan, and would take the world's tallest title from the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, which took it from the Sears Tower in Chicago, which took it from the trade center. The Freedom Tower's antenna would reach 2,000 feet.

This unusual hybrid would allow New York to "reclaim our skyline," the governor said in October, while acknowledging that most New Yorkers � 62 percent, according to a recent New York Times Poll � would not be willing to work in one of the higher floors of a new building at the trade center site.

Naturally, the NRDC is excited about the prospect of a wind farm atop the tower. But considering the sticky relationship between master planner Libeskind and tower architect Childs, all bets are off as to what will actually be the final design. Dunlap also points out that Libeskind's skinny, assymetrical design is still on WTC developer Larry Silverstein's website.

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By Jen Chung in Arts and Events, News on December 10, 2003 8:58 AM

Comments [rss]

malec

The freedom tower's definitely not going to be the world's tallest building. The Burj Dubai that's under construction in the UAE is planned to have 189 floors (check ameinfo.ea) and to have a minimum height of 705m. There have been many reports saying 800m aswell but they're keeping their height secret until the end they say.

cfewell

i think that the new design would be cool if they would get rid of the stupid wind turbine crap off the top. it makes us look like a bunch of panzies. the originall world trade center was awsome and then new one is stupid. i think they should just build a new more modern version of the old ones.

cfewell

i think that the new design would be cool if they would get rid of the stupid wind turbine crap off the top. it makes us look like a bunch of panzies. the originall world trade center was awsome and then new one is stupid. i think they should just build a new more modern version of the old ones.

Pickles

I think that the freedom tower shouldn't have such a tall spire. That makes it look kind of tall but in a cheating way

callalillie

both designs are terribly ugly. the one on the right looks like a stubbed out cigarette...which could carry many meanings in nyc.

candleblue

My guess is that "Childs" is being facetious ;D Anyway, real New Yorkers don't need a signpost to tell us where's downtown -- we just walk towards the hole in the sky.

infant

i'll tell you what's gay: it's making the building 1776 feet tall.

wow, how symbolically meaningful!

Childs

Who gives a damn about the shape? It should be as tall as possible so that we can once again know which way is downtown when we're lost on unnumbered streets. (Remember that?)

candleblue

It's pretty interesting how all these skyscrapers are being built in cities/countries that sort of have "something to prove". Not that I'm against it -- the race for height in the US in the 1900s, especially between Chicago and New York, and even *within* New York -- was because of that same idea, that same feeling of having to show that you are better.

But I really hope that the developers of the Freedom Tower won't fall prey to such childish one-upmanship. Sure, it would be great to have the world's tallest building. It would be a magnificent symbol of defiance, and a beautiful symbol that you can't knock New York down, that we'll only get up and get better than before and definitely better than anyone else. But if doing so means that we're gonna build some ugly monolith with a ridiculous, no-man's-land top that sticks out like the sorest thumb above the skyline, I say we pass on it.

eli

You're right, as of October. I didn't think it was due to be finished for a while.

henry

the design on the right looks like a person who has to pee.

Sef

the petronas towers aren't the tallest buildings in the world at the moment; that 'title' belongs to Taipei 101: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/3200160.stm

eli

Candleblue is right. The highest inhabitable floor in the Sears Tower is about 100 feet higher than the highest inhabitable floor in the Petronas Towers. The Sears Tower has an antenna on the top that actually makes it taller than the Petronas Tower by ANY measurement, but since it's a TV antenna and not a "decorative spire" it doesn't count. The rankings are BS, in my opinion.

veritech pilot

ick

calavera

ugh, david childs should be drawn and quartered. that's the kind of building you're going to get when you had the project over to a backroom boy.

candleblue

I can understand how people wouldn't want to work on the higher floors... it's still such a copout though, how all these cities are trying to outdo each other on the world's tallest building by simply sticking all these not-for-occupancy structures on top of their buildings. In my books, to this day the Sears Tower (Chicago) is still the world's tallest building because it has the highest inhabitable floor. So take that, Petronas Towers =p