‘The LMDC has reached out around the globe to bring the best minds of
design together.’
— JOHN C. WHITEHEAD
chairman, Lower Manhattan Development Corp.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Another step for WTC rebuilding
Six design teams
selected
to develop
plans for site
http://www.msnbc.com/news/813397.asp?cp1=1
By Jan Herman, MSNBC
NEW YORK, Sept. 26 — Plans to rebuild at Ground Zero turned another
corner Thursday as six architectural teams were named to develop new
urban design studies for the 16-acre World Trade Center site and much
of Lower Manhattan. The studies were chosen in an international
competition seeking alternatives to the six initial site plans that
were scrapped in July following widespread criticism of their
uninspired focus on commercial office space.
THE SIX TEAMS represent 27 firms from around the world. Four of the
teams are collaborative groups and two are individual firms. The six
were chosen from 407 submissions representing 34 nations. The finalists
will create design plans that will be selected and presented to the
public by the end of the year.
“The LMDC has reached out around the globe to bring the best minds of
design together,” said John C. Whitehead, chairman of the Lower
Manhattan Development Corp. which is charged with supervising
reconstruction of the site.
• Future proposals for the Trade Center site
Whitehead said in a press conference at LMDC headquarters
overlooking Ground Zero that the designs for the WTC site will reflect
“the most innovative, thoughtful design thinking today.”
The plans will represent “a grand and majestic vision that
inspires awe while memorializing the victims,” he said, adding that the
final result “will carry meaning from the smallest stone to the tallest
tower.”
FINALISTS NAMED
The finalists are: Foster and Partners of London, consisting
Lord Foster and Brandon Haw; Studio Daniel Libeskind of Berlin; a team
of Richard Meier with Peter Eisenman, Charles Gwathmey and Steven Holl,
all of New York; United Architects, consisting of Jesse Reiser of
Reiser and Umemoto of New York, Foreign Office Architects of London,
Greg Lynn FORM of Los Angeles, Imaginary Forces of New York and London,
Kevin Kenon Architect of New York and UN Studio of Amsterdam, The
Netherlands; THINK, consisting of Frederic Schwartz and Rafael Vinoly;
and Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, consisting of David M. Childs with
Field Operations of Philadelphia and New York, Tom Leader of Berkeley,
Calif., Michael Maltzan of Los Angeles, Neutelings Riedijk of
Rotterdam, The Netherlands, SANAA of Tokyo, together with artists Inigo
Manglano-Ovalle, Rita McBride, Jessica Stockholder and Elyn Zimmerman.
PANEL OF EXPERTS
A panel of six experts recommended by New York New Visions — a
coalition of 21 architecture, engineering, planning, landscape
architecture and design organizations — evaluated the credentials of
the 407 applicants over a period of three days and chose the six
finalists.
“We were looking for great qualifications,” panelist Richard N.
Swett, an architect and the former Ambassador to Denmark, said in an
interview. “I personally was looking for leadership qualities, because
I didn’t want them to have to go through what happened at the Javitts
Center.”
Swett was referring to the rejection of the six initial design
plans that were presented to the public in July at a “Listening to the
City” forum of 4,500 city residents, experts and Sept. 11 victims’
families. The plans were roundly lambasted as “cookie-cutter losers,”
to quote the Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic Ada Louise
Huxtable.
$40,000 TO EACH FINALIST
Each of the finalist teams named Thursday will received $40,000
to finance their designs and will be expected to produce two to three
plans each, said Alexander Garvin, vice president of planning, design
and development for the LMDC.
Those plans would then be winnowed to three, but “it’s not
inconceivable that one or two plans will be so compelling,” Garvin
said, that fewer than three would be presented by the end of the year.
Besides the multiple goals of restoring lost office space,
creating a memorial to the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks and
fulfilling community needs in terms of transportation, housing and
cultural institutions, the complexity of rebuilding at Ground Zero and
nearby areas of downtown Manhattan is the result of complicated
political forces, financial investments and real estate obligations.
A separate design competition for a memorial to Sept. 11 victims
will be launched at the beginning of 2003, with finalists expected to
be named next September.
RESTORING COMMERCIAL SPACE
The initial plans foundered largely because of the unimaginative
way they fulfilled a major requirement — restoring more than 11 million
square feet of commercial space destroyed by the terrorist attack.
(Roughly 10 million square feet were lost with the collapse of the twin
towers and 1.9 million square feet in a nearby skycraper.)
Restoring that amount of commercial space still will be required
of the new plans, said LMDC spokesman Matthew Higgins, because of the
lease on the WTC property held by commercial real estate developer
Larry Silverstein. (The property is owned by the Port Authority of New
York and New Jersey.)
“The program will provide more flexibility in how we treat the
site,” said Joseph Seymour, executive director of the Port Authority.
The LMDC hopes the new plans will come up with much more
imaginative mixed-use plans that will integrate a memorial site and
fulfill recreational, cultural and housing needs advocated by many
groups, most prominentaly New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
(A suggested swap of the 16-acre WTC site for acreage beneath
LaGuardia and John F. Kennedy airports in the borough of Queens, which
might have simplified the political and the real-estate complications,
“is not being actively pursued” at this point, Higgins said.)
The Port Authority, city, state and federal agencies have
accomplished a $750 million cleanup of the site and have obtained $21
billion in federal funds to redevelop a transportation hub, repair
streets, utilities and replace subways.
“The rebuilding of the World Trade Center site is one of the
most important projects ever undertaken in our nation’s history,” New
York Gov. George Pataki said in a prepared statement.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/813397.asp?cp1=1
design together.’
— JOHN C. WHITEHEAD
chairman, Lower Manhattan Development Corp.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Another step for WTC rebuilding
Six design teams
selected
to develop
plans for site
http://www.msnbc.com/news/813397.asp?cp1=1
By Jan Herman, MSNBC
NEW YORK, Sept. 26 — Plans to rebuild at Ground Zero turned another
corner Thursday as six architectural teams were named to develop new
urban design studies for the 16-acre World Trade Center site and much
of Lower Manhattan. The studies were chosen in an international
competition seeking alternatives to the six initial site plans that
were scrapped in July following widespread criticism of their
uninspired focus on commercial office space.
THE SIX TEAMS represent 27 firms from around the world. Four of the
teams are collaborative groups and two are individual firms. The six
were chosen from 407 submissions representing 34 nations. The finalists
will create design plans that will be selected and presented to the
public by the end of the year.
“The LMDC has reached out around the globe to bring the best minds of
design together,” said John C. Whitehead, chairman of the Lower
Manhattan Development Corp. which is charged with supervising
reconstruction of the site.
• Future proposals for the Trade Center site
Whitehead said in a press conference at LMDC headquarters
overlooking Ground Zero that the designs for the WTC site will reflect
“the most innovative, thoughtful design thinking today.”
The plans will represent “a grand and majestic vision that
inspires awe while memorializing the victims,” he said, adding that the
final result “will carry meaning from the smallest stone to the tallest
tower.”
FINALISTS NAMED
The finalists are: Foster and Partners of London, consisting
Lord Foster and Brandon Haw; Studio Daniel Libeskind of Berlin; a team
of Richard Meier with Peter Eisenman, Charles Gwathmey and Steven Holl,
all of New York; United Architects, consisting of Jesse Reiser of
Reiser and Umemoto of New York, Foreign Office Architects of London,
Greg Lynn FORM of Los Angeles, Imaginary Forces of New York and London,
Kevin Kenon Architect of New York and UN Studio of Amsterdam, The
Netherlands; THINK, consisting of Frederic Schwartz and Rafael Vinoly;
and Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, consisting of David M. Childs with
Field Operations of Philadelphia and New York, Tom Leader of Berkeley,
Calif., Michael Maltzan of Los Angeles, Neutelings Riedijk of
Rotterdam, The Netherlands, SANAA of Tokyo, together with artists Inigo
Manglano-Ovalle, Rita McBride, Jessica Stockholder and Elyn Zimmerman.
PANEL OF EXPERTS
A panel of six experts recommended by New York New Visions — a
coalition of 21 architecture, engineering, planning, landscape
architecture and design organizations — evaluated the credentials of
the 407 applicants over a period of three days and chose the six
finalists.
“We were looking for great qualifications,” panelist Richard N.
Swett, an architect and the former Ambassador to Denmark, said in an
interview. “I personally was looking for leadership qualities, because
I didn’t want them to have to go through what happened at the Javitts
Center.”
Swett was referring to the rejection of the six initial design
plans that were presented to the public in July at a “Listening to the
City” forum of 4,500 city residents, experts and Sept. 11 victims’
families. The plans were roundly lambasted as “cookie-cutter losers,”
to quote the Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic Ada Louise
Huxtable.
$40,000 TO EACH FINALIST
Each of the finalist teams named Thursday will received $40,000
to finance their designs and will be expected to produce two to three
plans each, said Alexander Garvin, vice president of planning, design
and development for the LMDC.
Those plans would then be winnowed to three, but “it’s not
inconceivable that one or two plans will be so compelling,” Garvin
said, that fewer than three would be presented by the end of the year.
Besides the multiple goals of restoring lost office space,
creating a memorial to the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks and
fulfilling community needs in terms of transportation, housing and
cultural institutions, the complexity of rebuilding at Ground Zero and
nearby areas of downtown Manhattan is the result of complicated
political forces, financial investments and real estate obligations.
A separate design competition for a memorial to Sept. 11 victims
will be launched at the beginning of 2003, with finalists expected to
be named next September.
RESTORING COMMERCIAL SPACE
The initial plans foundered largely because of the unimaginative
way they fulfilled a major requirement — restoring more than 11 million
square feet of commercial space destroyed by the terrorist attack.
(Roughly 10 million square feet were lost with the collapse of the twin
towers and 1.9 million square feet in a nearby skycraper.)
Restoring that amount of commercial space still will be required
of the new plans, said LMDC spokesman Matthew Higgins, because of the
lease on the WTC property held by commercial real estate developer
Larry Silverstein. (The property is owned by the Port Authority of New
York and New Jersey.)
“The program will provide more flexibility in how we treat the
site,” said Joseph Seymour, executive director of the Port Authority.
The LMDC hopes the new plans will come up with much more
imaginative mixed-use plans that will integrate a memorial site and
fulfill recreational, cultural and housing needs advocated by many
groups, most prominentaly New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
(A suggested swap of the 16-acre WTC site for acreage beneath
LaGuardia and John F. Kennedy airports in the borough of Queens, which
might have simplified the political and the real-estate complications,
“is not being actively pursued” at this point, Higgins said.)
The Port Authority, city, state and federal agencies have
accomplished a $750 million cleanup of the site and have obtained $21
billion in federal funds to redevelop a transportation hub, repair
streets, utilities and replace subways.
“The rebuilding of the World Trade Center site is one of the
most important projects ever undertaken in our nation’s history,” New
York Gov. George Pataki said in a prepared statement.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/813397.asp?cp1=1