Libeskind Plan Chosen for WTC Site

[RspctFrmCalgary]

Libeskind Plan Chosen for WTC Site

By SARA KUGLER

NEW YORK (AP) - 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.

Libeskind's design beat the THINK team's ``World Cultural Center'' plan, which envisioned two 1,665-foot latticework towers straddling the footprints of the original towers.

The new building is planned to be taller than the trade centre towers, which briefly stood as the world's tallest at 1,350 feet. Libeskind's tower also would surpass Malaysia's 1,483-foot Petronas Twin Towers, the tallest buildings in the world.

The choice was made by a committee with representatives of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the governor and the mayor. The committee met briefly on Wednesday afternoon and decided on the plan that was favoured by Gov. George Pataki and Mayor Michael Bloomberg, according to a source close to the process.

LMDC Chairman John Whitehead telephoned Libeskind with the news, the source said, telling the architect that his ``vision has brought hope and inspiration to a city still recovering from a terrible tragedy.''

Libeskind told the chairman that being selected is ``a life-changing experience,'' the source said.

Nine proposals for redeveloping the trade centre site, where nearly 2,800 people died Sept. 11, 2001, were unveiled Dec. 18. The design competition was launched after an initial set of plans, released in July, was derided as boring and overstuffed with office space.

Redevelopment officials were scheduled to announce the decision publicly Thursday.

After the two plans were chosen as finalists earlier this month, both teams of architects were asked to revise their designs to make them more easily realized.

Libeskind, whose original design called for a memorial at the trade centre foundation 70-feet below ground, reportedly changed that to 30 feet, allowing for infrastructure and transportation underneath.

The LMDC was created by Pataki and former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani after Sept. 11 to oversee the rebuilding of the trade centre site and downtown Manhattan. The Port Authority owns the site.

02/26/03 18:56 ES

Libeskind, whose original design called for a memorial at the trade centre foundation 70-feet below ground, reportedly changed that to 30 feet, allowing for infrastructure and transportation underneath.

What the heck does that mean, the memorial is to be 30 feet UNDERGROUND??????? Not the type of memorial I envision at all ... where's the green, the trees, the flowers, the breeze, the blue sky above?? Hopefully I'm missing something here.

Update: Seems I'm a little slow on this today and there are 2 other threads already on this under the Firefighters Forum. The link they provided has better info than this story ....

http://cms.firehouse.com/forums2/sho...threadid=46289
Adze is asking what the FDNY brothers think in his thread.

http://www.wnbc.com/news/2006935/detail.html