Imagining Ground Zero: The Official and Unofficial Proposals for the World Trade Center Site

The most highly publicized building renewal process in the world today-and the most significant survey of competing architecture designs since the international design competition for the Chicago Tribune Tower in 1922-is for the reconstruction of the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan. It has inspired a multitude of designs and has engaged architects on a global scale in the re-imagining of the vacant 16-acre site.<BR>Published in conjunction with Architectural Record, the most important architecture journal in the United States, Imagining Ground Zero documents not only the various competitions sponsored by the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation but also the informal proposals sponsored by the New York Times, New York Magazine, and the exhibition at Max Protetch Gallery, as well as a selection from thousands of schemes submitted independently for the World Trade Center site and Memorial. <BR>Among the key figures in contemporary architecture whose work is featured here are Coop Himmelblau, Peter Eisenman, Norman Foster, Charles Gwathmey, Zaha Hadid, Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates, Steven Holl, Rem Koolhaas, Greg Lynn, Richard Meier, Eric Owen Moss, David Rockwell, Lindy Roy, Ben van Berkel and Caroline Bos, Rafael Vinoly, and many others. With its exhaustive approach to these myriad voices in the discourse surrounding the World Trade Center site, Imagining Ground Zero is destined to become the canonical reference for this unprecedented event in world architecture.<BR>

"With proposals published and debated in the New York Times and elsewhere, the World Trade Center site has generated an unprecedented amount of architectural activity and speculation, beautifully captured in this book from Architectural Record special correspondent Stephens. This 9'12' compendium presents the five 'official' proposals considered by the city and other groups involved in the decision, including a version of the winning design from David Childs, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill with collaborating architect Daniel Liebeskind. The illustrations give lots of detail in vibrant color and black-and-white; the text is clear and full of information — and enthusiasm, even for the 120 or so projects that will never be realized. Some of them, like the stunning grid-like project from Richard Meier, Peter Eisenman, Charles Gwathmey and Stephen Holl that brilliantly riffs on the original WTC's facade, will be familiar. Others, like Hans Hollein's exact replicas of the original towers — except attached at the top by something that looks like a burned-out overturned car — will be less so. AR editor-in-chief Robert A. Ivy provides a foreword to what is sure to be the architecture book of the season. (Sept.)" Publishers Weekly (Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information, Inc.)