One of the most vigorously contested architectural competitions in many years ended on Feb. 26, 2003, when representatives of the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. (LMDC), the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and the governments of New York state and New York City chose Daniel Libeskind (see Biographies) to develop the 6.5-ha (16-ac) site of the World Trade Center, destroyed by the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Libeskind’s design featured a park sunk 9.1 m (30 ft) below street level that would be a memorial to those killed in the attacks, and 70 stories of offices topped by a spire that would rise to a height of 538 m (1,776 ft [the height of the structure was selected to coincide with the year that the Declaration of Independence was signed]) and thereby become the world’s tallest building (Freedom Tower). The shape of the spire was likened to that of the upraised arm of the Statue of Liberty. Other parts of the design included visible “footprints” marking where the Twin Towers once stood, a cultural quarter with a museum at its core, a transportation hub, a performing arts centre, and four additional office towers.
In winning the competition, Libeskind triumphed over some of the world’s most prominent architects. The six other finalists included Foster and Partners, whose design featured a single tower that appeared to be formed from two entwined buildings; Meier Eisenman Gwathmey Holl, which offered five towers, three of them connected by a walkway and two other buildings connected to each other by a walkway and erected perpendicular to the other three; the THINK Team, an international group whose design featured very tall twin towers composed of exposed steel latticework; United Architects, which submitted a plan that comprised several very high towers fused together to form a helix-shaped structure; Peterson/Littenberg, which offered tall twin towers with a promenade between them; and Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill, which presented a design featuring a cluster of 80-story buildings. Earlier, in 2002, six designs had been submitted for consideration, but all were rejected as prosaic and unimaginative.
Although Libeskind won the competition, questions remained as to who would build his design and whether it would retain all of its original elements. Though the LMDC was given the authority to oversee the restoration of the World Trade Center site, it had to share power with the Port Authority, which had built the original Trade Center and owned the land. In turn, the Port Authority had to deal with Larry Silverstein, a New York City developer who six weeks before the attacks had signed a 99-year lease on the Trade Center and held the rights to office space at the site. Silverstein was partnered with retail developer Westfield America, which was seeking maximum shopping space in any new plan and had its own well-known architect, David Childs, who envisioned some money-saving alterations to Libeskind’s plan. In July, however, Libeskind and Silverstein’s representatives reached an agreement whereby Childs would take the lead role in developing Freedom Tower. The office towers remained problematic in that as of early 2003 some 1.25 million sq m (13.5 million sq ft) of office space in lower Manhattan were vacant. Later in July Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava was selected to take the lead in the construction of the train terminal, with Libeskind taking a secondary role. In the meantime, the federal government and the Port Authority endorsed Libeskind’s plan to build the tower on the northwest corner of the site, and Mayor Michael Bloomberg agreed that the rebuilt Trade Center could expand beyond its original boundaries for a less-crowded look. In September it was announced that internationally acclaimed architects Sir Norman Foster, Jean Nouvel, and Fumihiko Maki would be designing three of the office towers. Construction was scheduled to begin in the summer of 2004.