The Times reports on Santiago Calatrava's first words about his commission to design a transit center at the World Trade Center site. Reporter David Dunlap writes, "...Mr. Calatrava made it clear that he, too, would think large on the scale of Grand Central Terminal and Pennsylvania Station. Old Pennsylvania Station." Heh. Gothamist likes that emphasis on "Old" Pennsylvania Station. The transit center will be "something above and beyond a PATH terminal, though that function will be at its core. He envisions a civic gathering place that would be open 24 hours a day, pulsing with life and movement, sending people out into the city, greeting travelers from the airport, discharging commuters to nearby ferries and even sheltering visitors from the rain."
Calatrava says, "Those places are gates to the city. New York City has a tradition of great stations. There are cities in the world that don't have that. New York has it." He adds, as everyone has been looking to his work for clues about how he'll tackle this design, "This station will be different than anything else I've done. I don't remember having had to work in such a dense, dense core of a city."
There is very little not to be excited about when thinking about Calatrava designing the new terminal. Look at his work (like the Orient Station in Lisbon, above; Photo - Structurae) on his website.
A Calatrava fansite. And will he use laminated glass? We're sure Dupont hopes so, as they devote a page to his work.
