Design Picked for WTC Site Tops World's Tallest Towers (washingtonpost.com)

(in full)NEW YORK, Feb. 26 -- A sloping, angular collection of buildings with a spire that will rise 1,776 feet and define the Lower Manhattan skyline has been chosen for the World Trade Center site.


The design, by Studio Daniel Libeskind, features five towers, cultural facilities and a pit that will serve as the framework for a memorial to the approximately 2,800 who died on this site Sept. 11, 2001. A separate architect will be chosen to design the memorial, known as the "Park of Heroes."


The Libeskind team has framed its design for the 16-acre site as an homage to the victims and to the year of U.S. independence. He has suggested that the pit will serve as a quiet and meditative place.


The Libeskind selection came after a political tug of war in which the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., led by a close supporter of President Bush, appeared poised to pick the competing proposal, two soaring latticework towers designed by the Think architectural team.


But Gov. George E. Pataki (R) and Mayor Michael Bloomberg favored the Libeskind design. They will formally announce the choice Thursday.


"Libeskind's plan is cheaper, and it has a memorial space that makes the victims' families happy," said a source close to those who favored the Libeskind design.


Libeskind's proposal will cost about $330 million. Many in Manhattan's downtown business community have opposed plans to immediately rebuild millions of square feet of office space, as this would add to the glut downtown. The World Financial Center, across from the World Trade Center site, has 2.5 million square feet of vacant space.


Many questions remain, not least who will pay for and build the towers. Developer Larry Silverstein, who holds the lease on the site, has dismissed each plan because it doesn't provide enough office space. But tonight a spokesman for Silverstein suggested the developer could work with him.


Libeskind, too, has indicated that he would tailor his vision to the practicalities of the city. His original plan called for a 70-foot-deep memorial pit; he changed that to a 30-foot-deep pit when it was noted that subways could not run below such a cut.


The finalists each featured buildings surpassing Malaysia's 1,483-foot Petronas Twin Towers, the world's tallest. The World Trade Center stood at 1,350 feet.