Architect Unveils New Design
For Freedom Tower at WTC
The latest design of the skyscraper being built to replace the World Trade Center covers its windowless, 20-story concrete base with thousands of glass prisms that catch the light, and is topped by a lighted spire meant to resemble the Statue of Liberty's torch, the building's architect said Wednesday.
Other details of the latest design for the 1,776-foot Freedom Tower include landscaped plazas with museum-size steps, sweet gum trees on cobblestone plazas and a fountain with a glass base.
Architect David Childs unveiled the new details of the design at an American Institute of Architects ceremony inside 7 World Trade Center, the skyscraper Mr. Childs also designed that sits across from ground zero.
Construction began this spring on the Freedom Tower, after a redesign more than a year ago to address concerns it wasn't adequately protected from truck bombs. The building was moved several feet back from the street and made smaller, with a footprint the identical size of one of the twin towers.
Some derided the windowless base that security officials sought, saying it resembled more of a bunker than an office building. Architects had originally thought that shimmering metal panels would cover the bottom of the building, but recently decided on 13-foot-high panels that combine triangular glass prisms.
The prisms would create a "wonderful, light, sculptural and I think artistic" effect and make the building appear more open, said Mr. Childs.
The glass panels are still being developed.
"Three glass manufacturers around the world are working on this," said Jeffrey Holmes, a senior designer with Mr. Childs' Skidmore, Owings & Merrill firm.
Security experts have approved of the new panels, which are designed to shatter into tiny particles so they won't cause severe damage, designers said.
Mr. Childs said the spire, enclosed in a white, fiberglass sheath that a sculptor is helping to create, would make it more visible from a distance and a landmark similar to the spires on the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building.
Daniel Libeskind, the original architect of the Freedom Tower, initially designed the spire to be off-center on a twisting building meant to resemble the Statue of Liberty. The spire was since moved to the center of the building and remains there, but the new design calls for a pedestal, housing satellite dishes and antennas, that more closely resembles the statue's torch.
The tree-lined plazas, developed by the landscape architect for the trade center memorial, would be on all four sides of the building; one entrance would take an estimated five million annual visitors to an observation deck, while another would go straight to restaurant space on the higher floors. Visitors could also enter from an underground concourse that connects to more than a dozen train lines.
With a 50-foot-high lobby and 69 floors of office space, the Freedom Tower is scheduled to open in 2011.
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