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Sources: WTC proposals narrowed downLibeskind, THINK said to be leading design entrants
From Phil Hirschkorn
NEW YORK (CNN) -- The competition to design what will be built on the site of the World Trade Center is expected to narrow to two, or possibly three, contenders early next week, sources tell CNN. The Lower Manhattan Development Corp. (LMDC), which is overseeing the rebuilding, will make the announcement, the sources said, as it sticks to its timetable of choosing a single land-use plan by the end of February. Nine plans for the 16-acre site and its surroundings, offered by seven architectural teams, were unveiled in mid-December. Four of the plans proposed the world's tallest buildings, as the 110-story twin towers were for a short time in the 1970s. Two of those concepts head the list of likely finalists, sources said. They are the plan by the Berlin, Germany-based Studio Daniel Libeskind and one of the plans by the New York-based team dubbed THINK, which offered three concepts. "I certainly hope we are fortunate enough for that to happen," said Carla Swickerath, a spokeswoman for Libeskind. "There has been no official notification." "We haven't heard a word," said Fred Schwartz, a principal of THINK. All the architectural models and animations remain on display through Sunday in the atrium of the World Financial Center, next to the trade center site. About 80,000 people have visited the exhibit in the past six weeks. About 4,000 people have filled out comment cards. About the same number of comments have been submitted to the LMDC Web site, where the plans can be viewed. It has received about 8 million hits since posting the plans. "The various agencies involved will be meeting next week to review the public comment and analysis and narrow down the number of designs under consideration," said Matt Higgins, an LMDC spokesman. A committee -- which includes representatives of LMDC; the site's owner, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey; the office of Mayor Michael Bloomberg; and New York Gov. George Pataki -- will choose the design finalists. Public favoritesPlans by Libeskind and THINK, led by Schwartz and Rafael Vinoly, are among the most popular concepts with the public, sources said. • Libeskind has proposed a 1,776-foot (533-meter) tower, a height that symbolizes the year of American independence, with "life-affirming" indoor gardens filling the top floors. He would leave large portions of the 70-foot-deep Ground Zero pit open, exposing the concrete foundation walls that survived the towers' collapse. Libeskind, a Polish-born American and the son of Holocaust survivors, designed the Jewish Museum in Berlin, the War Museum in Manchester, England, and the yet-to-be-built Denver Art Museum. • The favored plan by THINK proposes a pair of 1,665-foot (500-meter) open latticework towers, reminiscent of the Eiffel Tower, rising from the footprints of the old Twin Towers and housing cultural facilities such as a commemorative museum and a concert hall. The memorial towers would contain viewing platforms near the top and project beams of lights into the sky at night. The team proposes as many as eight mid-sized office buildings below. THINK's Schwartz designed the Staten Island Ferry Terminal being built in Lower Manhattan. Vinoly, just named to design two buildings on the plaza of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, designed the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and the Tokyo International Forum. Also receiving widespread public acclaim, sources said, is the plan by London, England-based Foster Partners -- two steel towers that "kiss and touch" at three points, rising 1,764 feet, with a concrete core and energy-efficient ventilation. Architect Norman Foster built Europe's tallest building, the 981-foot (294-meter) Commerzbank headquarters in Frankfurt, Germany. The other architects include a team of American and international designers calling itself United Architects, the New York husband-wife team of Steven Peterson and Barbara Littenberg, and the New York-based team of Richard Meier, Charles Gwathmey, Peter Eisenman and Steven Holl. One team -- Skidmore, Owings and Merrill -- withdrew from the competition. The architects have worked essentially pro-bono for months, receiving nothing more than a $40,000 stipend. Besides buildings, each plan includes shopping areas, parks, a hotel, a train terminal, and several acres for a memorial and a museum. The site proposals are being scrutinized against a 43-point checklist, with an emphasis on what the LMDC calls "workability" -- construction in phases over a decade, their connection with the neighborhood, and integration with the transportation infrastructure that is being built first underground. A memorial to nearly 2,800 people killed at the site September 11, 2001, will be the first project built at street level, after an international design competition that begins this spring. Towers of any kind are destined to be the last project built, depending largely on the market demands for office space.
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