World Trade Center

World Trade Center,

former building complex in lower Manhattan, New York City, consisting of seven buildings and a shopping concourse on a 16-acre (6.5-hectare) site; it was destroyed by a terrorist attack on Sept. 11, 2001. Prior to its destruction, the World Trade Center had been the world's largest commercial complex, home to many businesses, government agencies, and international trade organizations. Most prominent among its structures were the 110-story rectangular twin towers, one rising to 1,362 ft (415 m) and the other to 1,368 ft (417 m), with floors roughly an acre in size. Designed by Minoru YamasakiYamasaki, Minoru
, 1912–86, American architect, b. Seattle. Yamasaki worked for prominent architectural firms in New York City from 1937 until 1949, when he formed his own company. In 1951 he designed the Lambert–St.
..... Click the link for more information. and Emery Roth, the towers and concourse portion of the center were completed in 1973 at a cost of some $750 million. For a brief period (until the completion of the Sears Tower, now the Willis TowerWillis Tower,
formerly the Sears Tower,
Chicago, the second tallest building in the United States. Until the completion of the 1,483-ft (452-m) Petronas Towers (1998) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, it was the world's tallest building.
..... Click the link for more information. , in Chicago in 1974), the World Trade towers were the tallest buildings in the world. They remained the largest structures on the Eastern Seaboard of the United States, an internationally known landmark and tourist attraction rising high above the skyline of lower Manhattan.

In 1993 a terrorist car-bomb explosion damaged portions of the complex, killing six people and causing more than $300 million in damage. Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and nine other Islamic extremists were convicted of conspiracy and other charges related to the bombing in 1993, and the so-called mastermind, Ramzi Yousef, was convicted in 1998. On Sept. 11, 2001, a second terrorist attack, in which two hijacked commercial jetliners were crashed into the towers, ignited huge, intense fires in the upper stories of both buildings, weakening them and leading to their collapse. Other structures in the complex were completely or partially destroyed as a result, and many surrounding buildings were severely damaged. More than 2,700 people, including the passengers and crew of the airliners and several hundred emergency personnel responding to the initial fires, lost their lives; more than 7,000 people were injured.

The enormity of the events of Sept. 11 (see also 9/119/11,
the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, in the United States, and the associated events and impact of those attacks.

The attacks, which were carried out by agents of Al Qaeda (a militant Islamic terrorist group led by Osama bin Laden) used three hijacked commercial
..... Click the link for more information. ), which also involved a similar attack with a hijacked jetliner on the PentagonPentagon, the,
building accommodating the U.S. Dept. of Defense. Located in Arlington, Va., across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C., the Pentagon is a vast five-sided building designed by Los Angeles architect G. Edwin Bergstrom.
..... Click the link for more information. in Washington, D.C., and the crash in W Pennsylvania of a fourth hijacked plane, galvanized national feeling in the United States, where many watched the events unfold on television. In the aftermath of the worst terrorist attack in history, President George W. BushBush, George Walker,
1946–, 43d President of the United States (2001–9), b. New Haven, Conn. The eldest son of President George H. W. Bush, he was was raised in Texas and, like his father, attended Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass., and Yale, graduating in 1968.
..... Click the link for more information. announced a war on terrorismterrorism,
the threat or use of violence, often against the civilian population, to achieve political or social ends, to intimidate opponents, or to publicize grievances.
..... Click the link for more information. , and many nations pledged their support. Al QaedaAl Qaeda
or Al Qaida
[Arab.,=the base], Sunni Islamic terrorist organization with the stated goals of uniting all Muslims and establishing a transnational, strict-fundamentalist Islamic state.
..... Click the link for more information. , headed by Osama bin Ladenbin Laden, Osama or Usama
, 1957?–2011, Saudi-born leader of Al Qaeda, a terrorist organization devoted to uniting all Muslims and establishing a transnational, strict-fundamentalist Islamic state.
..... Click the link for more information. , was identified by U.S. authorities as being behind the attacks, and the United States subsequently began military operations in Afghanistan, where bin Laden was based and where the government was closely allied with him.

In Dec., 2001, Zacarias Moussaoui, a Frenchman of Moroccan descent who had been arrested (Aug., 2001) on immigration violations in Minnesota, was indicted on charges that he was part of the conspiracy responsible for the September attacks. He pleaded guilty in 2005 to being part of a conspiracy to attack the White House in a similar manner but denied being part of either Sept. 11 attack, and was given a life sentence in 2006.

The alleged mastermind of the plot was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a Kuwaiti of Pakistani parentage who had become a high-ranking member of Al Qaeda. He was captured in Pakistan in 2003, held by the United States at an undisclosed location, and transferred to Guantánamo Bay in 2006. According to a censored transcript of a closed-door hearing in 2007, he admitted to organizing and supervising the execution of the attacks of Sept. 11, but the government also later revealed that he had been subjected to waterboarding, which is generally regarded as a form of torture. In 2008 the Pentagon announced that a military tribunal would try Mohammed and others held at Guantánamo on conspiracy and other charges relating to the attacks; later plans (2010) for a federal trial were abandoned in 2011 in the face of strong political opposition. The five suspects were formally charged in 2012. Bin Laden, who had approved the attacks and eluded capture by U.S. forces in Afghanistan in the months following the attacks, was killed in May, 2011, during a raid by U.S. forces on the house in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in which he was living in hiding.

In the aftermath of the center's destruction, many competing interests—the city and state of New York, the owners of the site, the buildings' developer, survivors of the attack and families and friends of those killed, and others—advocated a variety of approaches to rebuilding the site. After a lengthy design competition, a preliminary master construction plan for the site, by Daniel LibeskindLibeskind, Daniel,
1946–, American architect, b. Łódź, Poland. He moved to the United States in 1959, becoming a citizen in 1965. He has held a number of teaching posts, notably at the Cranbrook Academy of Art (1978–85) and the universities of
..... Click the link for more information. , was approved in 2003. The design has since been much modified, and a new overall plan was unveiled in 2006.

Embracing the ground where the towers stood is a tree-filled street-level plaza that opened in 2011. The towers' footprints are the focus of the memorial; waterfalls stream over sunken black granite walls that edge square voids, feeding two pools below whose centers are smaller, echoing voids; the names of those who died are cut into bronze panels that surround the pools. The plaza was designed by Peter Walker; the memorial by Michael Arad. The plaza also contains the trapezoidal entrance to an underground memorial museum, which opened in 2014. Surrounding the memorial are a group of office towers (not all completed) that rise in height toward the the "Freedom Tower" (One World Trade Center), designed by the American architect David M. Childs of Skidmore, Owings and MerrillSkidmore, Owings and Merrill,
American architectural firm founded in 1936 in New York City by Louis Skidmore (1897–1962), Nathaniel A. Owings (1903–84), and John O. Merrill (1896–1975).
..... Click the link for more information. and opened in 2014. At 1,776 ft (541 m) high, with 94 floors, it is the tallest building in the United States. Two World Trade Center was designed by England's Lord Norman FosterFoster, Norman Robert, Baron Foster of Thames Bank,
1935–, British architect, b. Manchester, grad. Manchester Univ. school of architecture (1961), Yale school of architecture (M.A., 1962).
..... Click the link for more information. , Three by another English architect, Lord Richard RogersRogers, Richard, Baron Rogers of Riverside,
1933–, British architect, b. Florence, Italy, studied Architectural Association, London (1954–59), Yale (M.Arch., 1962). With Norman Foster and two other architects he cofounded (1963) Team 4, his first firm.
..... Click the link for more information. , and Four (completed 2014) by Japan's Fumihiko Maki. The complex also includes a transportation hub by Spain's Santiago CalatravaCalatrava, Santiago,
1951–, Spanish architect, b. Benimamet, near Valencia, grad. Institute of Architecture, Valencia (1974), Federal Institute of Technology, Zürich (Ph.D., 1981).
..... Click the link for more information. and will include a performing arts center.

Bibliography

See studies by E. Darton (1999), A. K. Gillespie (1999), W. Langewiesche (2002), and J. Glanz and E. Lipton (2003).

World Trade Center