II. The Freedom Tower

I) The One World Trade Center, a symbol of strength:

A)  Historical context of the project:

Ground Zero was at first the former location of the twin towers of the World Trade Centre which was destroyed by a terrorist attack on 11^th September 2001. More than 2,800 men and woman died on that day. America was weakened and took time to mourn. No American can forget this horrible moment of pain. It was a moment of crisis for the country which was for a long time a cultural model in the world.

Today approximately in the same place we can see the new symbol of the USA “The Freedom Tower”, which will be called “The One World Trade Center” because this name was the “easiest for people to identify with”. The american people are very proud in their way of life, and with this name they will keep in their heart a remenberence of the symbol of the first tower. 

This tower is the lead building of the World Trade Center complex in Lower Manhattan, New York City. At the beginning the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation organized a contest to find how use the site two years after the twin towers had fallen down. They look for the best achitect to product the best plan, and who will do an inovation in the world of architectur.

 Before the actual plan was drawn, there had been a first drawing with a different architecture, but it was redesigned to respect new rules of security that were demanded by the New York Police Department against terrorism. The old plan of the building had been designed to look like the Statue of Liberty holding her torch, and now, in the plan, it shows a classical shape with an arrow. The older plan was better in the form, and the represantation of New York but it deseve respect the protection's rules, now the building looks like the beautiful tower of the United State of America.

On June 25, 2005, the final design of The One World Trade Center was formally unveiled. This tower will be the tallest building in the USA and the third-tallest in the world with 1776 feet (541.3 m) behind Burj khalifa and Abraj Al Bait, as the towers had been the tallest building in New York and the tallest office building in the world.

 The 1776 feet stand for the year of the independence of the USA and thanks to the disposition of the complex will shine by the sun in the exactly hour when the Twin Towers fell. On July, 4,2004 the first stone was laid on the site. President Barack Obama visited the site and signed a steel beam on which he wrote “We remember, we rebuild, we come back stronger!”                                                                                                                  

During the project the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation chose two important architects to work on it: David Childs and Daniel Libeskind.

David Childs was born in 1941 in Princeton, New Jersey. He is an experimented architect who has worked on many big projects like JFK International Airport Arrivals Building, Worldwide Plaza, and of course The One World Trade Center. He is also a consulting  designer at Skidmore, Owings&Merril, New York. David Childs graduated from the Yale College and the Yale School of Art and Architecture.

 
Daniel Libeskind who was born on May 16, 1946 is an architect and an artist.

He studied at Lodz Conservatory, he moved to New York in 1960 after having attended a music school, he began to study architecture. Daniel Libeskind passed a master’s degree in the history and theory of architecture from the University of Essex, England. He worked on Denver Art Museum, the Pompidou center along with Renzo Piano, the architect of The Shard.

Both designers-- Childs and Libeskind-- were selected to design The One World Trade center. David Childs and Daniel Libeskind at first look for create a new vision of architectur with technical innovation, new elements, with steel, glases and many other things. 

B) The story of the site: 

The Twin Towers were famous office buildings in America, they used to be, for a moment at least, the tallest building in the USA with 1,369 and 1,362 feet (that is to say417 and 415 m).

 The construction of the tower began in 1966.

Minory Yamasaki was the designer of the buildings. He is an architect, born in Seattle, he graduated from the University of Washinton.

 The Twin towers were built using a new drywall system reinforced by steel cores, making them the first skyscrapers ever built without the use of masonry.

 The towers meant more than mere buildings; they stood for a real symbol of power for the American people, but they were destroyed during a terrorist attack on 11^th September 2001. More than 2,800 people died when the towers crashed down. This terrorist attack thrust America, and the world. The principal reason of this action was to protest against the United States support to the nation of Israel and its people. 

C) Role of the building :

The One World Trade Center is more than a simple tower or project, it is a way to show how proud America still is, how the nation carries on and doesn’t change its way of life. It was only after the twin towers were attacked that the city realized it had grown to love its pair of “white albatrosses”. The new tower is a symbol of freedom. In this tower, there will be shops and offices, and apartments. It will open in 2016. The new building mean a power too, the way of build more hight to prouve that they have money.