Who is the American architect of Polish-Jewish descent who won the competition to rebuild the World Trade Center site in Manhattan in 2003?
He was born on May 12, 1946 in Poland and has built many celebrated buildings around the world. These include the Jewish Museum in Berlin, Germany; the Denver Art Museum in the United States; the Imperial War Museum in Manchester, England; and the Michael Lee Chin Crystal at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, Canada. He also designed the Jewish Museum in Copenhagen, Denmark; the Felix Nussbaum House, a museum dedicated to the life and art of the painter Felix Nussbaum in Osnabruck, Germany; and the Wohl Center at the Bar-Ilan University in Tel Aviv, Israel. Apart from museums, he also designed the façade for the Hyundai Development Headquarters in Seoul, Korea.
After the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, then New York Governor George Pataki and Mayor Rudy Giuliani established the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC) to distribute more than $10 billion in federal funds to rebuild the towers and downtown Manhattan.
In 2002, LMDC conducted a national competition for the master designer for Ground Zero, which he eventually won. His plan called for a memorial in the center with five large office buildings arranged in a descending spiral from the southeast of the site.
The spiral’s pinnacle, the tallest building on the site, is the Freedom Tower designed by David Childs. Also included is a transit station designed by Santiago Calatrava, a museum designed by the architectural firm Snohetta, a cultural complex designed by Frank Gehry, and various parks and public spaces.
The plan aims to fully replace the 10 million square feet of office space lost on Sept. 11 to memorialize the victims of the attacks, and revive New York’s economy and skyline. The World Trade Center master plan, however, was fraught with many disagreements among the parties and has seen many changes since 2003.
In addition to his architectural projects, he has also worked in theater, creating set designs for the opera. In 1998, he designed the sets and costumes for the Norwegian National Theater in Oslo for The Architect, as well as the sets for Tristan and Isolde’s 2001 production at Saarbrucken’s Saarlandisches Staatsheater.
He has also written poetry, which he included in his book Fishing from the Pavement.
* * *
Last week’s question: Who is the Austrian architect who authored the textbook Modern Architecture and co-founded the Vienna Secession artistic group?
Answer: Otto Wagner
Winner: Felenita Ramores of Block 4 Lot 15 Caliche Street, Camarin, Caloocan City.