Here is an architect's rendering of a more bomb-resistant design for the 1,776-foot Freedom Tower, unveiled June 29, 2005. It's expected to offer 2.6 million square feet of office space and to become the world's tallest building.
Here's another rendering of the design unveiled June 29, 2005. In an effort to make it more resistant to truck bombs, the building was moved farther from a main thoroughfare. The distance from the street was increased from 25 to an average of 90 feet.
Architects went back to the drawing board after security concerns were raised. As of Feb. 27, 2003, this was the winning design (by Studio Daniel Libeskind) for the rebuilding of New York's World Trade Center.
Daniel Libeskind, a Berlin-based architect, envisioned a 1,776-foot tower capable of "restoring the spiritual peak of the city." Libeskind's plan envisioned sloping, angular towers with an airy spire jutting into the skyline, and preserves part of the sunken pit that was the foundation of the original twin towers.
Another view of Libeskind's plan for the rebuilt World Trade Center site. It included a sunken pit that was the foundation of the original twin towers, where he imagined space for a museum and a memorial to the nearly 2,800 victims who died there on Sept. 11, 2001.
Other Ideas
Seven teams of architects presented their designs, and two finalists were announced on Feb. 4, 2003: Libeskind's vision, and the design shown at left, from the architects at Think. They envisioned a huge garden skypark that would climb 10 stories, covering 10 blocks. At the perimeter would have been three large towers, one of them the world's tallest at 2,100 feet.
Part of the Think design was a "Great Room," a vast, covered Public Plaza with an enormous free-span glass ceiling.
This plan by Foster and Partners envisioned a skyscraper that would be divided into two parts that "kiss" at three points.
The view from a memorial to the lives lost on Sept. 11, 2001 as seen in a design by Foster and Partners. This plan called for the rebuilding of the street pattern that was taken away when the World Trade Center complex was built.
A group led by architect Richard Meier, who designed the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, submitted this design which included a floating "memorial plaza" on the Hudson River and a park with 2,800 small lights for each victims of the Sept. 11 attack.
A night time view of a design submitted by the group from Meier & Partners Architects, Eisenman Architects, Gwathmey Siegel & Associates, Steven Holl Architects.
The husband-and-wife team at Peterson/Littenberg Architecture and Urban Design proposed ground-level gardens featuring memorial sites, with boundaries that would have been defined by the shape and the geometry of the World Trade Center's footprints.
An overall view of a proposed design by Peterson/Littenberg. All of the proposals had to 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.
A plan involving a dense grid of vertical structures was submitted by a coalition of architects from Som/Sanaa (Sejima & Nishizawa)/Inigo Manglano-Ovalle/Rita McBride/Field Operations/Michael Maltzan Architecture/Tom Leader Studio/Jessica Stockholder/Elyn Zimmerman.
The Som/Sanaa group proposed constructing a horizontal platform elevated above the skyline, which would have created public spaces to be used for a host of facilities, including a skygarden.
United Architects' design called for five futuristic, connected buildings that would form one structure creating a "veil" surrounding the space containing a memorial. There would have been arches at the points where the buildings connect.
Observers would have been able to go below ground zero and look up into the sky as part of this memorial designed by United.