Santiago Calatrava has unveiled the latest model of his design for the World Trade Center transport hub, the train and bus station at the heart of the Ground Zero regeneration plan.
The model is on display as part of an exhibition of Calatrava’s American projects at the Queen Sofia Spanish Institute in Manhattan.
Calatrava has said the design for the hub was inspired by ‘a bird being released by a child’s hand’.
Since the design was first unveiled in 2004, it has undergone a number of changes due to budget restrictions.
The New York Times architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff has attacked the design, describing it as ‘a monument to the creative ego that celebrates Mr Calatrava’s engineering prowess but little else’.
He was commissioned to design the scheme as part of a joint venture known as the Downtown Partnership, which includes engineering giant Aecom.
From Calatrava’s project description:
‘Designed as a freestanding structure of glass and steel and situated within a landscaped plaza, the new, permanent transportation hub for Lower Manhattan will provide service for the Port Authority Trans-Hudson (PATH) commuter trains, New York city subway trains (1/9, E and N/R lines) and a potential rail link to John F. Kennedy International Airport, as well as seamless, indoor pedestrian access to the World Financial Center, adjacent buildings, and the proposed new Fulton Street Transit Center.’
When Santiago Calatrava unveiled his design for a transportation hub at ground zero in downtown Manhattan in January 2004, government officials touted it as a 21st-century version of Grand Central Terminal — one of the few bright spots in a development plan crippled by politics, petty self-interests and the weight of the site’s history. (…)
To enclose the hub, Mr. Calatrava created a vast central hall, something like Grand Central Terminal’s, 50 feet below ground and underneath a soaring elliptical glass-and-steel dome. The dome was supported by a system of curved white beams that suggested the rib cage of a gigantic prehistoric bird. Two enormous wings rise out of the top of this form, partly sheltering a plaza on either side.
The magic of the design was a structural sleight of hand. In a traditional vaulted roof the two sides press in toward the central spine, which helps support them. Mr. Calatrava’s mechanical roof would open along this spine — with its wings moving up and down — and when it did, the entire structure would seem to be defying gravity. (…)
Read the full article: www.nytimes.com
The model is on display as part of an exhibition of Calatrava’s American projects at the Queen Sofia Spanish Institute in Manhattan.
Calatrava has said the design for the hub was inspired by ‘a bird being released by a child’s hand’.
Since the design was first unveiled in 2004, it has undergone a number of changes due to budget restrictions.
The New York Times architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff has attacked the design, describing it as ‘a monument to the creative ego that celebrates Mr Calatrava’s engineering prowess but little else’.
He was commissioned to design the scheme as part of a joint venture known as the Downtown Partnership, which includes engineering giant Aecom.
From Calatrava’s project description:
‘Designed as a freestanding structure of glass and steel and situated within a landscaped plaza, the new, permanent transportation hub for Lower Manhattan will provide service for the Port Authority Trans-Hudson (PATH) commuter trains, New York city subway trains (1/9, E and N/R lines) and a potential rail link to John F. Kennedy International Airport, as well as seamless, indoor pedestrian access to the World Financial Center, adjacent buildings, and the proposed new Fulton Street Transit Center.’
When Santiago Calatrava unveiled his design for a transportation hub at ground zero in downtown Manhattan in January 2004, government officials touted it as a 21st-century version of Grand Central Terminal — one of the few bright spots in a development plan crippled by politics, petty self-interests and the weight of the site’s history. (…)
To enclose the hub, Mr. Calatrava created a vast central hall, something like Grand Central Terminal’s, 50 feet below ground and underneath a soaring elliptical glass-and-steel dome. The dome was supported by a system of curved white beams that suggested the rib cage of a gigantic prehistoric bird. Two enormous wings rise out of the top of this form, partly sheltering a plaza on either side.
The magic of the design was a structural sleight of hand. In a traditional vaulted roof the two sides press in toward the central spine, which helps support them. Mr. Calatrava’s mechanical roof would open along this spine — with its wings moving up and down — and when it did, the entire structure would seem to be defying gravity. (…)
Read the full article: www.nytimes.com
