"First we kill the architects..." Photographer Danny Lyon [1, 2, 3, 4] offers ten suggestions for New York City. Suggestion #6: "Leave the World Trade Center excavation exactly as it is and use the space as a freshwater pond planted with pink, white, and yellow lilies..." His essay is only one of many from names you'll recognize in a book called Block by Block: Jane Jacobs and the Future of New York. An associated exhibition opened yesterday [museum, NYT review]. Is New York City moving in the right direction? Is your city? [via] [more inside]
posted by salvia on Sep 26, 2007 - 19 comments

Libeskind's "wedge of light" WTC design isn't what you thought. Specifically, if you thought that sunlight would shine down on the plaza at precisely the interval between the time the first tower was hit, and the time the last tower fell...no. That's not what Libeskind meant after all. Actually, there would be shadows, it turns out. From other buildings! So funny, so pathetic.
posted by luser on May 1, 2003 - 10 comments

A complex of angular buildings and a 1,776-foot spire designed by architect Daniel Libeskind was chosen as the plan for the World Trade Center site on Wednesday, The Associated Press has learned. (via Salon)
posted by black8 on Feb 27, 2003 - 47 comments

Gaudi's Grand Hotel During his life, Barcelona’s “bauharoque” architect Antonin Gaudí pioneered imaginative structures with Moorish spires and whimsy likened to Dr Seuss. (Counter to popular myth, however, the word “gaudy” is not among his legacy.) Several of his works broke his patrons’ budgets and remain unfinished. Now, Boston artist-architect Paul Laffoley is attempting to revive Gaudi’s dramatic 1908 New York City concept and give it a second chance—at the WTC site for which it may originally have been commissioned. His thesis is both an intriguing history walk and a cloying, self-ingratiating, told-you-so piece.
posted by skyboy on Jan 22, 2003 - 14 comments

WTC Redevelopment Today at 1pm EST, the 7 proposed new plans for redevelopment of the former World Trade Center site will be revealed. Currently, they're carrying the announcements of the new proposals (with architect descriptions of their projects) live on wnyc.org on the Brian Lehrer Show.
posted by callicles on Dec 18, 2002 - 30 comments

Reader-submitted designs for the WTC I know I'm going to hell for saying this, but some of these are tremendously funny...
posted by oissubke on Dec 4, 2002 - 74 comments

New Plans for the World Trade Center. Call Frank Gehry, and keep Eric Owen Moss far, far away.
posted by four panels on Nov 20, 2002 - 41 comments

Six WTC site plans released by LMDC public-private partnership. Each idea revolves around a different conception of the memorial and is named for that, while showing variation in the structures that will be built around it. There are 3D renderings from above and from the south of the Battery, and skylines as seen from Jersey City, to show how the concept will fit into the existing neighborhood. None as imposing as the Twin Towers, but several include at least one distinctive structure that will rise above the nearest buildings, so Manhattan pedestrians can navigate again. All may be discussed Saturday in a public meeting at Javits Center, expected to attract 5000. I suspect that figure will be low.
posted by dhartung on Jul 16, 2002 - 57 comments

Fireproofing Faulted in Trade Center Collapse... Fireproofing failures -- rather the impact of the plane crashes -- probably caused the World Trade Center towers to quickly collapse, architects and engineers told a federal panel today.

"The insulation is going to turn out to be the root cause," said James G. Quintiere, a professor at University of Maryland's Fire Protection Engineering Department who analyzed the fireproofing in the two towers.

Also worth reading is NY Fire Chief Vincent Dunn's assessment, "Why the World Trade Center Buildings Collapsed".
posted by zerolucid on Jun 27, 2002 - 16 comments

Now that's more like it. Finally a design for rebuilding the WTC that captures the appropriate spirit. Far better than the other designs I've seen. No doubt some will think it too much, though. What's your opinion?
posted by rushmc on Jun 24, 2002 - 84 comments

The New WTC? The Max Protech Gallery in Manhattan has an exhibit of sketches and designs from artists, architects, and others with their ideas on how the World Trade Center could be rebuilt
posted by owillis on Jan 20, 2002 - 48 comments

Sacred Commerce? Funny, I walked daily to work past the World Trade Center, and have been in the Middle East more than once, but it never occured to me to connect the WTC with Islamic architecture until I read this.
posted by MidasMulligan on Dec 31, 2001 - 1 comment

From safety to where. This article provides a great, in-depth look at the World Trade Center from an architectural standpoint. Beginning with its lead architect, a Japanese man who suffered himself from the racism of the WW2 era, it goes over the structure of the buildings and reasons why the center withstood the 1993 bombing -- and, for a while, the impacts of the two hijacked planes -- and what the future for New York and the businesses affected may hold. (Thanks to overmorgen for the link.)
posted by moz on Sep 26, 2001 - 5 comments

Design choice for tower helped save lives : via FARK - can you imagine what would have happened had the planes hit the base of the towers?
posted by Mossy on Sep 12, 2001 - 5 comments