Thirty-two design firms, individual architects and artists from the United States and four other countries made up the seven teams. All teams received a stipend of $40,000 for their work, representing only a fraction of their true costs to date. The Manhattan corporation recommended a master plan in February of 2003, which could have been a compilation of the nine designs,although in the final choice only one was chosen. A separate international design competition will be held for the victims' memorial, to be selected in September 2003. We are pleased to be one of the first websites to bring you details of this.

 

We are also proud to have been the first private website to bring to you a summary and outline of these newer proposals. The nine different visions were similar in that they all have a mass transit hub ( All of the plans include a terminal on the scale of Grand Central Station to unite dozens of subway and suburban train lines), retail and commercial space, museums and cultural institutions, a tree-lined boulevard and gardens and memorials. It should be noted that the pictures and descriptions we show here are in no specific order.

 

Skyscrapers even taller than the 110-story World Trade Center towers, and memorials ranging from twin reflecting pools to a "Park of Heroes," are among the newest round of proposals for rebuilding ground zero.  "These are designs not only for our time, but for all time," John Whitehead, chairman of the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., said as the new plans were unveiled.  "They must transcend the present, to speak to our children and to their children ... to send an immortal message." The nine new proposals the second round of plans to redevelop the site where almost 2,800 people died in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack take a variety of approaches to the 16-acre site in lower Manhattan. Four of the plans proposed creating the tallest building in the world, topping Malaysia's 1,483-foot Petronas Twin Towers. One recommended a 2,100-foot skyscraper, while another called for a 1,776-foot tower topped with a spire. The plans for rebuilding the site and surrounding neighborhood came from seven teams of architects from Berlin, London, Amsterdam, Tokyo, New York and Los Angeles, and were selected from 407 submissions. A choice was expected by January 31st 2003, and we are pleased to bring you the results. A first group of plans, released in July, was derided as boring and overstuffed with office space. Each plan includes a memorial. One places it on top of a building, while another incorporates a formal, sunken garden. A specific memorial design will be chosen after a separate international contest next year. The designs will be on public display in the city's World Financial Center and posted on the development corporation's Web site. The Lower Manhattan Development Corp. held public hearings and accepted public comment on its Web site and at the Winter Garden, where the plans were displayed until Feb.2. 2003. The proposals must include 6.5 million to 10 million of office space on the trade center site plus a hotel and mall and up to 3.5 million of commercial space at its perimeter.

 

February 26th, 2003,

 

A cluster of sloping, angular buildings with a 1,776-foot spire that would be the tallest in the world was chosen Wednesday February 26th, 2003 as the blueprint to redevelop the World Trade Center site. Architect Daniel Libeskind's design beat a plan by an international design team known as THINK, which envisioned two 1,665-foot latticework towers straddling the footprints of the original towers. The choice of the soaring design, which pays homage to the year America declared its independence, was made by a committee of representatives from the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and the offices of the governor and mayor. Both Gov. George Pataki and Mayor Michael Bloomberg favored the Libeskind plan. Relatives of the nearly 2,800 people who died at ground zero called for memorials with a sense of respect and grace, while business officials and others said the city cannot afford to lose too much office space. The Libeskind design called for 70 stories of offices, with airy "gardens of the world" beckoning tourists above office level. It included five starkly geometrical towers and several smaller cultural buildings around the foundations of the fallen towers. The plan, which may undergo revisions, also called for a Park of Heroes, and a memorial encompassing the footprints of the fallen towers. The spire was designed to house a garden all the way to its top, and not office space, because "gardens are a constant affirmation of life," Libeskind said in December. He has estimated the cost of building his design at $330 million. A separate competition for a memorial design will begin this spring.

 

January 2003,

Two plans which would create the world's tallest building have been chosen as finalists for the World Trade Center site in New York. Both designs feature structures higher than the world's tallest buildings, the Petronas Twin Towers. The two firms behind the plans are Libeskind, which designed Berlin's Jewish Museum, and the international Think team, led by New York-based architects Rafael Vinoly and Frederic Schwartz. The finalists were announced on Tuesday February 4th, 2003, with the final choice expected sometime this month. Libeskind's proposal features a 541-metre (1,776-foot) spire overlooking several smaller steel towers. The Think team put forward three ideas. The proposal now in the running features two decorative steel towers, reaching 507.5 m (1,655 ft). Although the two finalists have both proposed soaring structures, neither plan involves office space extending all the way to the top. Both models include an area where a memorial might be built for the 2,792 people who died in the 11 September 2001 attacks. The decision over which building gets the go ahead lies with the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC) and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Whichever design they choose is expected to take about a decade to build.

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, based in New York, designed Manhattan's new Penn station. Its WTC site design has a cluster of nine buildings, each 1,100 square feet and about 80 floors. This coalition of architects proposed plans that include constructing a horizontal platform elevated above the skyline that would create public spaces to be used for a host of facilities, including a skygarden.