In memory of
The World Trade Center
New York
Built 1970 – 1977
Minoru Yamaski & Associates, Architect, with Emery Roth and Sons
Designed for strength, demolished by terrorist attack
on September 11, 2001
„The World Trade Center is a living symbol of man’s dedication to world peace.“
–Minoru Yamasaki, chief architect
Copyright © Mary Ann Sullivan
Digital Imaging Project
The World Trade Center consisted of two 110-story buildings (known as the „Twin Towers“) and five smaller buildings. The buildings were light, economical structures designed to keep the wind bracing on the outside surfaces. Architect Minoru Yamasaki studied over a hundred models before adopting the twin tower plan. Plans for a single tower were rejected because the size was cumbersome and impractical. Plans for several towers „looked too much like a housing project,“ Yamasaki said. The World Trade Center Towers were among the tallest buildings in the world, and contained nine million square feet of office space.
Construction of the World Trade Center Twin Towers
Tower One was 1,368 feet (414 meters) tall
Tower Two was 1,362 feet (412 meters) tall
Each tower was 64 m square
Each tower stood 411 m above street level
The Towers rested on solid bedrock and the foundations extended 21 m below grade
The Towers had a height-to-width ratio of 6.8.
The Tower facades were constructed of aluminium and steel lattice
Each tower used a lightweight tube construction with 244 closely spaced columns on the outer walls
A 80 cm tall web joist connected the core to the perimeter at each floor
Concrete slabs were poured over the web joists to form the floors
There were no interior columns in the Tower office spaces
Each tower contained 104 passenger elevators
Each tower had 21,800 windows
Each tower weighed about 500,000 tons
About 50,000 people worked in the World Trade Center complex
From Architect Minoru Yamasaki
Quotes from the Chief Architect of the World Trade Center in New York City
Why the World Trade Center Towers Fell
Engineers who studied the Twin Towers after the September 11 attacks explain why the buildings stood as long as they did, and why they eventually collapsed.
18:25 2004-03-29
Moscow planning to build world’s highest skyscraper
The world’s highest skyscraper, which is planned to be build in Moscow, will have 116 floors, Moscow architecture, construction and development department head Vladimir Resin declared on Echo of Moscow radio. He specified that the building would be 640 meters high.
He also mentioned that the program New Ring envisaged the construction of 60 high buildings of more than 35 floors. He noted that the construction of skyscrapers was a necessity for Moscow since there was no free area in the city. He added that there were 23 square meters of residential floor space per person in Moscow while in Europe it was about 50 to 70 square meters.
Firms that have international licenses for such activities will develop projects on constructing skyscrapers, he stressed.
The World Trade Center was destroyed by terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. The WTC was a complex of 7 buildings in Lower Manhattan of which the Twin Towers were best known. The two towers were different in height, the first one, built in 1972 being 417 meters and the second one, finished on year later measured 415 meters. The One World Trade Center was the highest building in the world until 1974, when the Sears Tower was built in Chicago. When destroyed, the Twin Towers still ranked in the top 10 of the highest buildings in the world and dominated the skyline of lower Manhattan.
The World Trade Center was a project started up in 1960 by David Rockefeller. The towers were sometimes nicknamed David and Nelson, the Rockefeller brothers. The design came from Minoru Yamasaki and Emery Roth & Sons. The monolithic Twin Towers were never seen as great architecture, but it certainly was a great engineering feat.
The Building never received the attention the Empire State Building gets. But it first became world news when, on Friday Feb. 23, 1993 at 12:18, a bomb exploded in the World Trade Center. The explosion, destroying 5 floors in the 110-story building, including the central commando Center, trapped about 50,000 people, killed 6 and wounded at least 1000 people. Moslem fundamentalists have been convicted for the bombing.
The second time the WTC became world news was on the tragic day September 11, 2001 when 2 hijacked planes crashed into the twin towers. Not much later, the towers imploded. More than 2,800 people died in the terrorist attack.
Even though the towers were built to withstand the impact of a plane crash, the towers collapsed within 2 hours of the initial impact. But an investigation into the cause of the collapse of the towers found no structural flaws or blunders. Some of the reasons of the collapse are: