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Ground Zero Reconstruction · Acedra
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Ground Zero Reconstruction
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0:00
ground zero is one of the most challenging construction sites there's ever been in the wake of 911 everyone agreed that something had to be done but no one could agree on exactly what the resulting skyscraper that now stands alongside the memorial on the site is an almost reluctant american icon it's a building that does a bit of everything that everyone wanted whether that was projecting strength or appearing elegant acting as a symbolic landmark or offering premium office space
0:28
it's a skyscraper built of compromise an icon by committee
0:40
the future of ground zero was a topic that everyone had thoughts on many felt that rebuilding should focus on dedicated memorial but there were also some pretty big economic issues that couldn't be avoided like the 2.7 million square meters of manhattan real estate that no longer existed the responsibility for rebuilding split three ways the site was owned by the port authority of new york and new jersey but the original world trade center towers themselves have been leased to
1:08
private developer larry silverstein in the summer of 2001. then after 911 the lower manhattan development corporation or lmdc was formed to distribute more than 10 billion us dollars in federal funds to rebuild downtown manhattan from the outset there was no true single client for the site and no power structure for decision making there were other forces too like then new york city mayor mike bloomberg who took office in january 2002 and state governor george pataki pataki
1:42
silverstein and the port authority wanted to rebuild all of the office space that had been destroyed but found themselves struggling to convince the public who felt that what should be a memorial site was being overly commercialized enter the 2002 design competition where nine architecture firms were invited to submit master plan ideas in an attempt to get people excited about a site that respected past events but also included real estate studio liebskind won this competition with a
2:12
plan to push the site beyond its commercial purpose in his own words daniel liebskin set out to create a space for people not just corporations proposing skyscrapers that would bow towards the site of the original world trade into towers where a new memorial would be built crowning everything would be new york's new tallest building a structure that would rise to a symbolic height of 1776 feet nodding to the year of american independence the public fell in love with the idea and pataki dubbed it
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the freedom tower but that's where things got even more complicated in the competition city officials had asked architects to design buildings in an effort to help communicate and sell their ideas but that's all it was it was never intended for liebskin to design and build the freedom tower he was overseeing the wider master plan larry silverstein ignored liebskin's tower proposal as he was technically entitled to and appointed david childs of skidmore owings and merrell to design a building
3:15
for that part of the site what happened then was pretty tense all round after some negotiating leapskind let childs take over the role of architect of the freedom tower and agreed to meaningfully collaborate leap skinned sent architects into child's office to watch what was happening charles developed a design with more floor space and a shorter spire liebskins asked pataki to override this eventually the two architects both compromised and merged their designs and liebskind
3:48
later sued silverstein for unpaid fees relating to his early work on the project finally in 2003 a new tower was unveiled to the public many in the architecture world were relieved it didn't look like a camel that is a horse designed by committee but others criticized several unresolved aspects of the design and all the while the awkward project continued [Music] then in may 2005 sensing the public's unease another new york force got involved donald trump sponsored a plan to get the
4:22
original towers rebuilt but in a slightly taller stronger and better way we want to rebuild the world trade center as the world trade center but better a little bit taller a lot stronger just plain better the idea was never an officially recognized design more a protest campaign that gave a voice to those who didn't like the plans on the table and it never went anywhere [Music] in june 2005 the tower was redesigned again this time in response to the new york police department requesting changes
5:00
so it could become the safest building in the world the new design shed many of the bolder and more ambitious elements seen in earlier concepts and the building instead evolved into a somewhat pedestrian and inoffensive skyscraper the kind you'd take home to meet your mum it had no windows for the first 50 meters and its concrete base was clad in a shatterproof glass to an extent disconnecting the tower from the very site it was there to anchor afraid they'd scare off potential
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tenants with the name as audacious as freedom tower the new rebranded redesigned one world trade center finally broke ground in 2006 and began to rise above the city around the building's huge concrete core a beefed up steel frame was constructed designed to redistribute loads if columns were to fail unfortunately the compromises didn't stop at design stage during construction the tower spire wasn't properly finished in 2011 due to costs maintenance and safety issues it was stripped back from
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a triangular clad architectural feature to an exposed steel antenna but it still rose to 1776 feet achieving the height part of leapskin's masterplan while compromising on the form it took to get there finally in 2014 13 years on from 9 11 the 3.8 billion us dollar skyscraper completed rising 104 stories above manhattan to become the tallest building in the western hemisphere the original world trade center towers were also marred in controversy their construction was met with lawsuits
6:41
and they were criticized as being unimaginative when they first completed in 1970. one reviewer said they looked like the boxes that the empire state and chrysler buildings had been delivered in and yet over time they became synonymous with new york an awe-inspiring architectural ode to the city's capitalist ambitions they became american icons david charles described how he wanted to capture this simplicity in his design for the new world trade center in terms of aesthetics many agree that
7:13
he largely accomplishes this his design is geometrically pleasing and uncomplicated and it catches the light in some spectacular ways but it's also criticized for being too generic it bears a striking similarity to the new york stock exchange tower proposed in 1996 and the northeast asia trade tower in south korea one architect even alleged that skidmore owings and merrell had copied the tower's design from his 1999 student thesis project in reality the project always presented
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a pretty impossible task regardless of who its architect or decision makers were where some wanted a memorial others wanted a commercial hub where some wanted a strong building others wanted an elegant one in the end everyone got a little bit of what they wanted and the overall result felt exactly like that writing just before the building's opening in 2014 the chicago tribune's then architecture critic blair kamen said that the tower signaled the rebirth of the city while also feeling set apart
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from it its standoffishness a byproduct of ground zero's underlying conflict between remembrance and renewal some have argued that a longer passage of time before rebuilding would have allowed for the construction of a more architecturally daring skyscraper but new york skyline was broken and it needed to be fixed [Music] our buildings are all a product of their context and one world trade center is what emerged from an horrific event and the emotive power confused
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determination to remember and rebuild that ensued afterwards in that sense it's the only building that could have risen from the site and it's now part of the fabric of new york just as the original towers became synonymous with the city over time the new skyscraper is already held in greater affection today than it was when it opened less than seven years ago its appearance across pop culture normalizing its final form time will be this building's fairest critic and the next generation may
9:17
conclude that the trade-offs and compromises of one world trade center ultimately speak more powerfully to the challenges of this site than anything an architect could plan if you enjoyed this video and you want to get more from the definitive video channel for construction subscribe to the b1m
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