9 wildly diverse plans for Trade Center site

** ONE OF SEVEN IMAGES CROPPED FOR UNIFORM SIZE ** This one of the proposed designs for the rebuilding of New York's World Trade Center, by Studio Daniel Libeskind, presented in New York Wednesday Dec. 18, 2002. Seven teams of architects from around the world presented their designs, beginning an intensive six weeks of review before a final plan is chosen to develop the 16-acre site and the surrounding neighborhood.(AP Photo/LMDC) less ** ONE OF SEVEN IMAGES CROPPED FOR UNIFORM SIZE ** This one of the proposed designs for the rebuilding of New York's World Trade Center, by Studio Daniel Libeskind, presented in New York Wednesday Dec. 18, ... more Image 1 of / 9 Caption Close 9 wildly diverse plans for Trade Center site 1 / 9 Back to Gallery

2002-12-19 04:00:00 PDT New York -- An eye-popping set of visions for the World Trade Center site was unveiled Wednesday that could make whatever rises even more dramatic than the towers destroyed by terrorists.

Five of the nine schemes presented with fanfare by New York officials include proposals for the world's tallest tower.

There is a 10 million-square-foot "city in the sky," and towers with open- air plazas more than 1,000 feet above ground. Several architects would place a memorial to victims of the attack below the surface, creating voids from the footprints of the felled twin towers.

A set of plans released in July was scrapped after being ridiculed by the public as lifeless. Now, officials say they want to choose a designer and basic plan by February -- even though nobody seems quite sure how to sort through these wildly divergent proposals by some of the world's most highly regarded architects.

"It will be a tortuous process," said Roland Betts, a New York developer and close friend of President Bush who has emerged as a driving force on the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., created especially to oversee reconstruction.

Betts said it was most likely that only one architectural team would be chosen, despite earlier talk of several teams proceeding with different elements in the 16-acre site.

"The idea of mixing and matching is very difficult, because the work is so different," Betts said. "We'll have to listen closely to the public, do analysis, and try to come together" behind one scheme.

More than 1,000 people watched the three-hour presentation in a vast atrium at Battery Park City across from the attack site. As the event began, 31 television cameras were lined up amid 250 reporters.

The first presentation was by Daniel Libeskind of Germany, designer of Berlin's Jewish Museum and one of six architects selected by the LMDC in September. It signaled the ambitious reach of the visions.

Libeskind's proposal would keep the west edge of the site as it now is, a pit framed by the concrete slurry wall that keeps water from seeping in. This area would serve as the memorial and includes the location of the original 110- story towers. On the east, connected to a 70-story tower, a slender shaft would climb 1,500 feet, topped by an airy greenhouse -- and a spire rising to 1,776 feet.

"New York needs a symbolic masterstroke," Libeskind said later. "It is the greatest city in the world."

A submerged memorial was also proposed by Lord Norman Foster of England. He would line the footprints in a solid wall of steel and stone six stories high, three below ground and three above. The voids would be approached by ramps but left empty.

Foster, who designed Europe's tallest tower, marks the skyline with a pair of 1,568-foot towers that angle in and out to, in his words, "kiss and touch and become one" at several spots. The rooftops would be framed public spaces, with the skin of the building rising another 200 feet.

Other teams have strong New York roots. One calls itself THINK and unveiled three different schemes. One encased 13 acres of the site in a 30-story-high glass box, framing it with buildings. Another wrapped the airspace of the former towers in scaffolding-like latticework that, at different levels, supported a "world cultural center" with such uses as an amphitheater and museums.

"We have a moral obligation to use their (victims') memory, elevate their memory to become the inspiration for a better future," said Rafael Vinoly of THINK. "This is a project that is the answer of the civilized world to the absurdity of evil."

Another New York team included Richard Meier, designer of the Getty Museum and the planned San Jose City Hall.

This team proposed a massive grid in the air: five 1,111-foot-high towers connected by five-story-high horizontal bands. The towers would be arranged as an L, leaving most of the site open.

"Our project is probably the most modest of all the ones here," Meier suggested afterward. "We're interested in creating space of dignity . . . the Rockefeller Center of the 21st Century."

A STARTLING DESIGN

Perhaps the most startling scheme came from United Architects -- a team of younger architects representing six firms from three nations.

Five towers would twist and lean as they rose to meet in a single structure that culminated in a 1,620-foot-high shaft. The result would be towers crisscrossing above streets; the entire structure would contain 10.5 million square feet.

The "city in the sky" could be built in phases, with towers reinforcing each other for added safety, said team member Greg Lynn.

"We tried with our towers to invent something new out of something very practical," Lynn said. "We wanted to return pride to the city."

Undulating towers also are in the plan by a team organized by the New York office of Skidmore Owings and Merrill, the well-known national firm.

The SOM team envisioned a thicket of 1,000-foot-high towers connected by horizontal bands that include parks and other cultural uses. On the west, towers would rise from planes of water that mark how much of the site originally was in the harbor.

AN UNORTHODOX APPROACH

In this context, the most unorthodox approach was the lone conventional one.

This proposal would break the site into nine shop-lined blocks and puts back streets that were erased by the megablock of the World Trade Center in the 1960s.

"This is a complete urban district with an integration of elements that is so typically New York," said Steven Peterson of Peterson/Littenberg, a planning firm hired by the LMDC before the competition. The plan includes twin 1,440-foot towers that Peterson suggested "symbolize triumph, standing there with big shoulders reaching arms into the air."

For all the architectural drama, one official planner voiced satisfaction that the plans are grounded in reality.

"There are different variations in the themes, very different approaches, but all our transportation priorities were incorporated," said Bob Davidson, chief architect for the landowner, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

While many of the plans include memorial space, a separate competition will held to design the actual memorial. That process will begin after the LMDC and the Port Authority agree on which team should do the overall plan for the site, officials say. Construction of towers would not begin for several years.

Before the presentations, Betts praised Bush -- a fraternity brother at Yale -- "for his consistent and concise advice on this, which is simply to do something that will make people proud."

Betts later was asked which design he thought the president would like best.

"I don't know. You'd have to ask him," Betts said, laughing. "Give him a call."

PROPOSALS FOR WORLD TRADE CENTER SITE

(1) Daniel Libeskind's tower , with a spire reaching 1,776 feet, includes a multistory greenhouse that the German architect likens to a vertical memorial garden. . (2) The twin towers of English architect Lord Norman Foster rise 1,764 feet and would include tree-filled atriums at the three spots where they intersect. . (3) The "World Cultural Center" by the New York-based collaboration THINK use lattices to frame the space once filled by the twin towers. At their base: reflecting pools. . (4) United Architects call their merger of five towers into one a "city in the sky." A five-story-high band of public spaces would begin at the 60th floor. . (5) By linking nine towers at various points, a team organized by Skidmore Owings Merrill would create 32 acres of parks and civic facilities, folding public and private space. . (6) The emphasis is on traditional architecture, grassy memorial squares and the historic street grid in the plan by Peterson/Littenberg of New York.