#Freedom tower windows

To put that into context, in New York on 9/11, 15,500 windows were damaged within a mile of Ground Zero – nearly 9,000 within half that distance. In urban areas, it’s estimated that between 80-85% of all secondary blast injuries are caused by flying glass.

That adds up to more than twelve acres, and a testament to the combined efforts of the glass industry over the intervening ten years to design glass and glazing systems of hitherto unimaginable strength. The key word is glass because the new architecture of the World Trade Center comprises 538,420 square feet of glass. Its base is 200 ft square, the same footprint of the original towers, while its observation deck will be at 1,362 feet, the height of World Trade Center Tower Two, while its glass parapet will be at 1,368 feet, the height of World Trade Center Tower One. The new Freedom Tower, which will take back the title, will have echoes of the Twin Towers. Ironically, after 9/11, the Empire State Building once more took on the mantle of the city’s tallest building. However, such was the structural overkill of the building that it sustained only relatively minor damage. That first happened in July1945 when a Mitchell B-25 bomber accidentally flew into the Empire State Building, killing 14 people. Tragically, it wasn’t the first time that an aeroplane had struck the New York skyline. Above ground, an eight-acre landscaped Memorial Plaza is also planned to create a contemplative and quiet area away from the noise and bustle of the surrounding city. Underground, there are transit links to complete and a cavernous memorial is taking shape. Some 2,500 construction workers are employed at Ground Zero, and not all of them above ground.

Completion of the centrepiece, One World Trade Center, also known as the Freedom Tower, is scheduled for 2013 – although it’s risen to over 60 storeys, and growing by a storey a week. Around the memorial, work on new mega-structures will continue for some years. It will be a symbolic ceremony on 9/11, but an end of the beginning rather than the beginning of the end. The names of the almost 3,000 people who died in New York, Pennsylvania, the Pentagon, and the February 1993 World Trade Center bombing will be inscribed around the edges. On 9/11 this year, a memorial to the dead will be finally opened, consisting of two pools, each nearly of one acre, set within the footprints of the Twin Towers, with the largest man-made waterfalls in the USA running down their sides. It was a co-ordinated and horrific attack that brought war to Afghanistan and Iraq, costing countless more lives and which is still changing the face of the world. Later this year the world will remember the terrible day ten years ago when terrorists flew fuel-laden airliners into New York’s iconic Twin Towers, and crashed two other airliners in Washington DC and Pennsylvania. Tim Kempster is the company’s managing director. Wrightstyle is an international steel glazing company which designs and fabricates specialist glazing systems to mitigate against fire or ballistic or blast attack. The installation of the column on the 100th floor of the skyscraper makes the structure at the site of the 9/11 attacks 1,271ft (387m) high.Ībout one floor of the building has been erected per week and it will be 1,776ft tall when completed.įreedom Tower New York : BBC video – external linkĪ Wrightstyle perspective in glass from 9/11 to the Freedom Tower One World Trade Center overtook the Empire State Building to become New York’s tallest building when a steel column was lifted into place on Monday. One World Trade Center to be New York’s tallest building One World Trade Center, NYC, USA : view from the spire Freedom Tower New York, Images, Architect, World Trade Centre NYC, Location, Photo Freedom Tower, NYC : One World Trade Center New YorkĬontemporary Manhattan Building, United States of America

Freedom tower