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Norman Foster or Bjarke Ingels, who will be designing the final tower at the World Trade Center?

Norman Foster or Bjarke Ingels, who will be designing the final tower at the World Trade Center?

A few weeks ago AN noted that the Norman Foster–designed 2 World Trade Center might finally rise after all these years. The New York Times was reporting that Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation and 21st Century Fox were in talks to lease half the building for a joint headquarters. If it were to happen, wrote the Times, Murdoch’s team might bring in a new architect to update Foster’s design. Now it’s looking like that is exactly what’s going to happen—and it’s going to happen in an, ahem, BIG way.

The Wall Street Journal is now reporting that the media companies, along with developer Larry Silverstein, have tapped Bjarke Ingels to redesign the building. Given BIG’s reputation for twisting, torquing, pyramidal forms, it’s safe to say that the new design will be far from Foster’s diamond-topped glass tower. But, at this point, all we know is that the building is expected to retain the size and height of the original plan—roughly three million square feet and 1,270 feet tall. The foundation, after all, has already been built, so any new tower would rise from the same footprint.

“The planned 2 World Trade Center tower would have plenty of room, as the companies would occupy about half of the building,” reported the Journal. “But the existing design was deemed problematic because it wasn’t considered ideal for studio space at the base—it was designed with bank-trading floors in mind—and because of the amount of infrastructure on the ground-level related to the PATH train station at the site, the [people familiar with the design] said.”

If financing is secured for the project, and 2 World Trade Center is ultimately finished, it would mark the complete rebuilding of the 16-acre site.


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