Completing the WTC Dream Team: Foster, Rogers, Maki Reveal Tower Designs

Summary: World-renowned architects Lord Norman Foster, Lord Richard Rogers, and Fumihiko Maki joined New York Governor George E. Pataki and World Trade Center developer Larry A. Silverstein at 7 World Trade Center on September 7 to unveil designs for the three World Trade Center towers. The three towers—plus Santiago Calatrava’s transportation hub, currently under construction—will occupy the length of the east side of the World Trade Center site. In keeping with Daniel Libeskind’s master plan, the towers will form a descending spiral toward the memorial site.

Gov. Pataki said, "Today, three brilliant architects from around the globe have given New York and the nation a great gift in the tremendous buildings they have designed. Like our great city, these tower designs, joined by the Freedom Tower, Calatrava Transportation Hub, and grand memorial, will fuse different approaches and perspectives and create an entirety that will be even richer in its beauty and more extraordinary in its entirety than the sum of its parts."

"I am amazed by what we have been able to accomplish in a few short months," Silverstein said. "Each design is timeless in its feel and reflects the individual genius of each architect. At the same time, the towers relate perfectly to each other visually and, together, will enliven the surrounding area with a dynamic retail-oriented streetscape." Silverstein Properties has committed to ensuring that each of the three towers will achieve at least a U.S. Green Building Council LEED® Gold rating.

200 Greenwich Street/Tower 2: Foster and Partners has designed a 78-story, 1,254-foot-tall tower that will house 60 office floors, four trading floors, and a 65-story office tower. Four blocks—centered on a cruciform core—rise to the 59th floor, where the glass facades shear off at an angle in deference to the memorial. Notches on all four sides break up the tower’s mass. ”The crystalline top of the tower respects the master plan and bows down to the Memorial Park commemorating the tragic events that unfolded here. But it is also a powerful symbol of hope for the future,” said Foster.

175 Greenwich Street/Tower 3: The 1,155-foot-tall, Richard Rogers Partnership-designed tower offers 54 office floors and five trading floors. The architects employed diamond-shaped structural bracing that articulates the building's east-west configuration. Column-free corners ensure unimpeded panoramic views. The three-level-high lobby on Greenwich Street offers a "big picture window" onto the memorial. Richard Rogers said, “We believe we have designed a transparent and legible building which responds both to the architectural and social context of the area, and one which will make a fitting contribution to the New York skyline."

150 Greenwich/Tower 4: Fumihiko Maki and Maki and Associates’ 61-story tower is 947 feet tall, housing 53 office floors and five floors of retail. Seen from a distance, the building’s angular crown evokes the spiral formed by the group of four towers. Its 85-foot-tall atrium on Church Street features multiple cascading floors. "The fundamental approach to the design of the tower at 150 Greenwich is two-fold: A 'minimalist' tower that achieves an appropriate presence, quiet but with dignity, becoming a tribute to the Memorial, and a 'podium' that becomes a catalyst in activating and enlivening the immediate urban environment as part of the revitalization of downtown New York," Maki said.

When completed in 2012, the three towers will offer 6.2 million square feet of office space and a half million square feet of interconnected and contiguous first-class retail.

—SS