BIG's Two World Trade Center scrapped as Foster + Partners' design is revived
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The developer of New York’s World Trade Center site has nixed BIG’s Two World Trade Center design in favour of an earlier proposal by Foster + Partners, following back-and-forth over the two projects.
Developer Silverstein Properties has scrapped BIG’s scheme and will instead rework a proposal that Foster + Partners first developed for the site in 2006, according to the New York Post.
The British firm’s 79-storey office tower with a slanted diamond-shaped top is “being significantly modified to be more reflective of contemporary needs and taste,” Silverstein Properties founder Larry Silverstein told the New York Post.
The decision follows much debate about which structure to build on the World Trade Center site in Lower Manhattan.
Silverstein Properties scrapped Foster + Partners’ proposal in 2015 because the building’s key tenants – 21st Century Fox and News Corp – said it “was more suited for an investment bank than a modern media company”, according to the Wall Street Journal.
BIG founder Bjarke Ingels was then selected to oversee the Two World Trade Center project, and designed a skyscraper consisting of stacked glass boxes with setbacks that form large terraces.
The following year, however, Silverstein Properties said it was still uncertain whether to go with BIG or Foster + Partners. In the same year, 21st Century Fox and News Corp also pulled out causing construction to slow down.
Two World Trade Center will be located on the northeast corner of the World Trade Center complex and next to the Oculus by Santiago Calatrava.
It is the final tower left to be built in the development, which has undergone much reconstruction since the Twin Towers and buildings closeby were destroyed during the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
The masterplan was designed by local architect Daniel Libeskind. Completed buildings include Three World Trade Center by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, SOM’s One World Trade and Four World Trade by Fumihiko Maki.
Two other buildings currently under construction nearby are a performing arts centre by REX and Calatrava’s St Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, whose construction is back on after years of delay.
Images are by DBOX unless stated otherwise.
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