Silverstein had the legal right to rebuild the buildings, including the One World Trade Center on the site of the original World Trade Center, and although the ground was unoccupied, Silverstein continued to pay $ 10 million a month for the rent to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
Numerous disagreements with Larry Silverstein, leaseholder of the space occupied by the original complex with full rights on the ground, delayed the progress of the project.
"A place of innovation and new thinking and modern ideas of safety and security," he said.The World Trade Center destruction by a terrorist attack on Septemnot only plunged the population of New York and the world, in a panic too close, but also created a large debate on the future of the place occupied by the complex.Ī first contest sponsored by the Lower Manhattan Development was a failure by the public rejection of design concepts, leading to a second round in 2002, the project was selected Daniel Libeskind. While the 9/11 Memorial symbolises "the void" created by the attacks, the "Freedom Tower" tower represents "the positive," according to Lewis. In the meantime, One WTC is on the way to becoming as iconic as its predecessors. "It really is a transformative moment," he said. "We're in 2021 and we're talking about well-being and incorporating that into the spaces we're doing, creating outdoor spaces that people can work in, rooftop terraces that are really workspaces, meeting spaces. "We were immediately looking at the types of filtration systems that are in there these buildings, and most new buildings have high efficiency filters, particulate filters that also deal with viruses."īut if the office towers have not yet regained their pre-pandemic occupancy rate, their preeminence in New York's skyline cannot be called into question.Ī tower of some 600 apartments is under construction in Brooklyn and will become the first "super-skyscraper" outside Manhattan when it is completed next year.Īround 20 other skyscrapers are in the works across New York.Īs well as the environment, the mental health of the occupants of these buildings is now also a priority, said Lewis. "People were thinking we were going to come back much quicker than we have," admitted Lewis. "Think of a worst-case scenario and then what would that mean, and then prepare for it," he added, explaining their methodology.Īlmost 20 years later and the pandemic has left One WTC and most of Manhattan's prestigious towers empty for months. "We started to think about the filtering system and the air quality," Lewis explained. "They had been through such trauma, they had to be a part of the solutions we were coming up with," said Lewis.įire was not the only concern: in the fall of 2001, several anonymous letters containing anthrax were sent to some media and politicians, killing five people. It was they who suggested a back-up system capable of compensating for the failure of emergency generators on 9/11 to provide electricity long enough to evacuate the building. "We had a goal, which was an hour evacuation total time to evacuate the whole building," said Lewis.įirefighters were invited to planning meetings. They include wide stairwells to allow a quick evacuation of the 104-storey tower, a signaling light to alert aircraft, fire-resistant cameras and communication tools on every floor to allow rescuers to constantly monitor the situation. The architects implemented safety standards on One WTC that have since become standard for skyscrapers. In the end, the only solution was to shield the heart of the building with reinforced concrete, "broad enough that people can get out of there," he explained. "We just couldn't imagine someone who might be a little bit overweight or a little bit afraid taking a jump out the window."
Inventors came back with a giant chute, and a zip wire, with a parachutist demonstrating the latter, Lewis remembers.
The architects launched ideas about how to evacuate people other than from the stairs. "We were thinking it's the beginning of the millennium, we were thinking that this had to be the next generation of buildings, both in terms of safety, as well as environmental impact," recalled Lewis.Īmong the most nightmarish images from 9/11 are those of people jumping to their deaths from the towers to escape the blaze.
For the architects at SOM, which builds skyscrapers around the world, it was an opportunity to realize concepts that they had been thinking about for years.