Today at a press conference in New York, the designs for the rebuilding of the World Trade Center site were made public. The seven masterplans will be displayed at the World Financial Center in Lower Manhattan until February 2003.
Foster and Partners and six other teams were selected in October from over 400 international teams, comprising over 1000 individual firms, to develop a masterplan for the site. The brief issued by the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation called for a site for the memorial in addition to office accommodation, shops, cafes, restaurants, cultural buildings, a transport interchange and public space on the 16-acre site.
Foster and Partners proposal has three main components: the footprint of the destroyed twin towers which become a site for the memorial; a park extending to the waterfront and Battery Park City, bridging over West Street; and on the edges of the park shops, cafes, restaurants, theatres, cinemas, a street market and a new twinned tower the tallest in the world. Directly below the new tower will be a mass transit hub linking the PATH train, all subway lines, new airtrain links to JFK and Newark Liberty Airports a bus station and parking. The original street pattern will be restored reconnecting the surrounding neighborhoods.
