PATH Hub Design Approved

Santiago Calatrava's design for the PATH hub at the World Trade Center has been modified to meet security concerns. The base has been reinforced with more steel beams and some of the glass in the buliding's "wings" has been eliminated/ The Port Authority approved the design, which will cost over $2.2 billion. Groundbreaking for the stunning building will be on September 6, and the hub is supposed to open in 2009. Calatrava's design has been a rare, welcome critical success downtown; see more pictures of it here. It's also been a much easier design process than the Freedom Tower, probably because the structure is smaller and only has the Port Authority deciding on plans, versus a number of committees.

The NY Times has a story about Calatrava proposing to place a tattered flag from September 11 in the terminal; it turns out he had been thinking about putting a Jasper Johns flag painting in the space at first.

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By Jen Chung in News on July 29, 2005 7:31 AM

Comments [rss]

Anna

estee, totally true. we need more vaginas in architecture. there's enough phallic buildings in the world.

estee

two words: vagina dentata

simon lok

bob, you must be kidding... LOL This is as bad or worse than the others.

bob denver

The best building at ground zero. Caltavara should have designed the main building too instead of the endless design monstrosities by Liebeskind and Childs. NYC should steal his Chicago/Fordham designed tower.

Jane Minty

Sci-fi architecture such as this design pleases me greatly!

Rose

I also looks like the bones of a fish or a comb for lice.

Rose

Yes, it looks like some fish. The one with the long pointy nose thing and the fanned fins on the back that hang on people's panelled walls. Swordfish? Marlin? I don't know.

Nobody

It looks rather organic, sort of like a Venus flytrap.

tim

"A welcome success"? $2.2B for a station, with no increase in service? I can walk from the A to the PATH lines now - is it really worth $2.2B to do it in a tunnel rather than on the sidewalk?

simon lok

What in the F@*& is that! Come on. Why has architecture become such a joke. If we could rip out almost every building created from the 50's on, the city would be no worse off for it. From the butalist architecture of the 50s and 60s, to the crap of the 70s to this new wacky just to be wacky designs- I think architects need to really think about how their work, which we have to live with for decades, impacts its surroundings... frankly, architecture has become a real freakshow.

Kevin Walsh

For 2.2 billion...do we really need this thing?

What we have there now is fine. Of course the PA isn't going to spend the 2 billion to actually improve service or build new routes.

www.forgotten-ny.com

S.D.

Am I the only one to think that it doesn't fit in with the surrounding buildings?

It's certainly an interesting and inspired design, but from the images, It looks like the Odd ball in the crowd, which Might not be a bad thing.