![]() Worried that the intense air pressure created by the buildingsâ high speed elevators might buckle conventional shafts, engineers designed a solution using a drywall system fixed to the reinforced steel core. The twin towers were the first supertall buildings designed without any masonry. The columns, finished with a silver-colored aluminum alloy, were 18 3/4" wide and set only 22" apart, making the towers appear from afar to have no windows at all.Īlso unique to the engineering design were its core and elevator system. Faced with the difficulties of building to unprecedented heights, the engineers employed an innovative structural model: a rigid "hollow tube" of closely spaced steel columns with floor trusses extended across to a central core. Yamasaki and engineers John Skilling and Les Robertson worked closely, and the relationship between the towers' design and structure was clear. Only later was it decided to construct them as the world's tallest buildings, following a suggestion said to have originated with the Port Authority's public relations staff. Designed to be very tall to maximize the area of the plaza, the towers were initially to rise to only 80-90 stories. To achieve this, Yamasaki considered more than a hundred different building configurations before settling on the concept of twin towers and three lower-rise structures. The Port Authority envisioned a project with a total of 10 million square feet of office space. Architect Minoru Yamasaki was selected to design the project architects Emery Roth & Sons handled production work, and, at the request of Yamasaki, the firm of Worthington, Skilling, Helle and Jackson served as engineers. In the late 1950s the Port Authority took interest in the project and in 1962 fixed its site on the west side of Lower Manhattan on a superblock bounded by Vesey, Liberty, Church and West Streets. ![]() The towers, One and Two World Trade Center, rose at the heart of the complex, each climbing more than 100 feet higher than the silver mast of the Empire State Building.Ĭonstruction of a world trade facility had been under consideration since the end of WWII. ![]() The World Trade Center was more than its signature twin towers: it was a complex of seven buildings on 16-acres, constructed and operated by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ). ![]()
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