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WTC Architects Claim Working Together

Posted on: Thursday, 11 December 2003, 06:00 CST

Despite reports of bitter feuding, two renowned architects said Thursday they're working together to complete a plan by next week for a 1,776-foot tower at the World Trade Center site.

"People know there are differences," Daniel Libeskind said. "It's not easy. But we're working toward reconciling those differences and creating something that everybody will be proud of."

David Childs added: "We've been working together since the middle of July, and we've made tremendous progress. We're not finished."

The two men joined Gov. George Pataki and trade center leaseholder Larry Silverstein at a ceremony marking the hoisting of the first steel beam for the tenant floors at 7 World Trade Center. The 52-story building is rising just north of the trade center site, where terrorists destroyed the twin towers and other buildings on Sept. 11, 2001.

Childs, of Skidmore Owings and Merrill, designed the new 7 World Trade Center and is collaborating with Libeskind, the trade center master planner, on the 1,776-foot Freedom Tower, the site's signature building.

Under a schedule announced by Pataki last spring, the design for the Freedom Tower is to be released next week so that construction can start next summer.

But Libeskind and Childs, who was chosen by Silverstein to design the tower, have had a stormy relationship that Libeskind has likened to an arranged marriage.

The New York Post reported Thursday that the two men are not speaking, and reports this week said the current working design for the tower does not resemble Libeskind's original vision of an angular building that echoes the Statue of Liberty.

Asked if the design for the tower would look like his original plan, Libeskind said, "I hope yes."

Peggy Deamer, the associate dean of Yale University's School of Architecture, warned that if there's "a forced marriage" between the architects, "it's going to yield a product that doesn't please anyone."

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