CultureNOW - 4 World Trade Center: Beyer Blinder Belle Architects & Planners LLP, Fumikiko Maki, Adamson Associates and Leslie Robertson Associates

4 World Trade Center
Recent Architecture: Workplace

Fumihiko Maki was born in Tokyo, Japan in 1928. He began his study of architecture as an undergraduate at the University of Toyko, where he participated in Kenzo Tange's Research Laboratory (1948-52). He continued his studies at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan (1953), and Harvard University's Graduate School of Design (GSD) in Cambridge, Massachusetts (1954), earning Master of Architecture degrees at both institutions. From 1956 to 1962, he taught at Washington University's School of Architecture in St. Louis, Missouri, followed by brief a teaching stint in the Department of Urban Design at his alma matter, the GSD (1962-65). During this time he worked for two firms, first Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill and later, Sert, Jackson, and Associates. In 1965 Maki returned to Japan to open his own firm, Fumihiko Maki and Associates. There he resumed his teaching career, taking a position as professor of architecture at the University of Tokyo. Since then he has also been visiting professor and critic at a number of institutions, including Columbia University, the University of California, Berkley, the University of California, Los Angeles, and the GSD. Maki’s first major commission as an architect was Steinberg Hall, an arts center built in 1956 on the Washington University campus that today houses the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum. In addition to completing in 2010 the MIT Media Lab and SA+P Extension (Building E14), Maki's commissions have been mainly for large scale public works and institutional edifices including the Hillside Terrace Apartment Complex in Tokyo (1969-92), Akibadai Culture and Gymnastics Hall in Fujisawa (1984), the Wacoal Media Center (Spiral Building) in Tokyo (1985), National Museum of Modern Art in Kyoto (1986), TEPIA Science Pavilion in Tokyo (1989), Makukari Messe Convention Center in Chiba Prefecture (1989-1998), the Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium in Tokyo (1990), the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco (1993), the Isar Büro Park in Munich (1993-95), and the Yokohama Island Tower in Yokohama (2003), among many others. Maki is also well known for his commitment to research in urban design. He was a founding member of the techno-organicist Metabolist movement in Japan, publishing the piece “Some Thoughts on Collective Form,” with Otaka Masato in the seminal pamphlet Metabolism in 1960 (which was subsequently reprinted in 1965 in the volume edited by MIT professor Gygöry Kepes, titled Structure in Art and in Science). In 1993 Maki was awarded the Pritzker Prize, the highest honor in the field of architecture. Other projects include the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto, a contribution to the United Nations complex in New York City, and Tower Four of the new World Trade Center, also in New York City.

Courtesy of MIT Public Art Collection

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Design Architect
Fumikiko Maki

Associate Architect
Beyer Blinder Belle Architects & Planners LLP

Architect of Record
Adamson Associates

Structural Engineer
Leslie Robertson Associates

Dates

Constructed, 2013

Awards

AIANY Chapter Design Award 2014

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Description

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4 World Trade Center belongs to a collective group of buildings founded on the redevelopment master plan by Studio Daniel Libeskind known as “Memory Foundations.” It is the first completed building on the original 16-acre World Trade center site and is the fourth of five skyscrapers intended to form a spiral composition of stepping buildings encircling the National September 11 Memorial Park. Provided a corner site, the project occupies is a full city block bounded by Greenwich, Church, Cortland and Liberty Streets and is adjacent two parks in a rare privileged setting within Manhattan. The building is prominently staged onto the Memorial Park on the west and faces Zucotti Park on the south-east corner becoming a portal to Wall Street and Lower Manhattan.

The 72-storey building reaches a height of 977 feet (298 meters) and contains 2.3 million square feet (213,700 square meters) of office and retail space. The offices comprise 56-floors in two distinctly configured floor plates in three vertical sections. The larger of the two in the low and mid-rise sections is 44,000 square feet in the shape of a parallelogram echoing the configuration of the site. The high-rise section is 32,000 square feet in the shape of a trapezoid that gives the building a triangulated sculptural effect that is chiseled at the top. The form achieves a sense of a rotational pivot at the corner to contribute to its role in the formal composition of the master plan.

The tower is designed to create a strong sculptural effect with a quiet presence. Seen from a distance, it can be identified as a minimalistic sculpture with its angular profile that distinguishes itself in the skyline. The building is clad in colorless silver glass that dynamically changes appearance depending upon the time of day, weather and light. It transforms itself from a distinct sculptural object to one that blends and becomes a part of the sky with a glazed and metallic materiality. Each of the 11,000 structurally glazed curtain wall units are detailed with a single lite of insulated glass that is 5’ wide by 13’-6” high concealing the spandrel section at the floor / ceiling cavity via a horizontal touch mullion to enable the tower to express a highly abstract quality.

To the contrary, the building reveals itself as a piece of architecture through space, tactile materials, their colors and refined details upon closer approach. Upon arriving at the base of the tower, one is unable to discern the large building as a complete entity. Unlike pure sculpture, the building clearly establishes a sense of place that is not only visual but one that is felt through rich spatial experiences.

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Location

150 Greenwich St
New York, NY 10006
United States

Nearby Items

3 World Trade Center		370 feet
National September 11th Museum Pavilion at the World Trade Center		371 feet
FDNY Wall Memorial		393 feet
Tribute Center		593 feet
114 Liberty Street (119 Cedar Street)		602 feet
National September 11th Memorial Museum		666 feet
The Pavilion at Brookfield Place		731 feet