Rising: Rebuilding Ground Zero | Discovery Channel

If you have access to Discovery Channel, watch this beautiful series of three each hour-long shows which document the rebuilding the World Trade Center site. The memorial will be dedicated on the 10th anniversary of the attack and will then open to the public on Sept 12th. Construction of the museum, transportation hub, and the surrounding towers will continue for a couple more years.

A link to the Discovery Channel website is here: Rising: Rebuilding Ground Zero

Nearly a decade after the September 11th World Trade Center attacks, Discovery Channel's The Rising will bring updates from the construction site. A massive effort is currently under way to reshape ground zero into an expansive 16-acre complex the likes of which has never been seen. To document this historic effort, Discovery Channel is on the ground alongside the men and women who are making this vision a reality. 

This powerful documentary series about rebuilding Ground Zero will be repeated before the nationally televised unveiling of the new ground zero with President Barack Obama on Sept. 11, 2011. Watch for this series. I highly recommend it! The three, hour-long segments clearly explain the design aspirations and the construction challenges of rebuilding the World Trade Center site. Steven Spielberg produced the documentary. The spiritually charged and highly symbolic story is told with amazing scenes and real humanity.

Honoring the past; Inspiring the future; and Engineering the impossible.

Master plan architect is Daniel Libeskind, whom I have profiled in an earlier post. The principle designers of the site's main components are detailed below with information gleaned from Wikipedia and from the documentary. All of the people make appearances in the movie to explain their designs. Many family members, surviving first responders, and construction workers also provide their reactions.

• One World Trade Center tower was a collaboration between Studio Daniel Libeskind and Skidmore, Owings and Merrill architect David Childs. Childs acted as the design architect and project manager for the tower, and Libeskind collaborated on the concept and schematic design. The tower will rise to 1,362 feet, the height of the original World Trade Center south tower, and its antenna will rise to the symbolic height of 1,776 feet. The antenna's height refers to 1776, the year in which the United States Declaration of Independence was signed. 
• British architect Norman Foster designed Tower Two, also known as 200 Greenwich Street. The building's distinctive slanted, diamond-shaped roof echoes Libeskind's original sketches for the building. 
• Richard Rogers Partnership designed Tower Three, or 175 Greenwich Street, which stands across Greenwich Street from the Memorial's two reflecting pools.
• Maki and Associates designed Tower Four, also known as 150 Greenwich Street.
• Tower 5 was designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox and will stand where the Deutsche Bank building once stood. On June 22, 2007, the Port Authority announced that JP Morgan Chase will lease the 42-story building for its investment banking headquarters.
• 7 World Trade Center stands off of Port Authority property. David Childs of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill designed the tower, which opened in May 2006.
• A memorial called "Reflecting Absence" honors the victims of the September 11 attacks and the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. The memorial, designed by Peter Walker and Israeli-American architect Michael Arad, consists of a field of trees interrupted by the footprints of the twin towers. Pools of water fill the footprints, underneath which sits a memorial space whose walls bear the names of the victims. The slurry wall, which holds back the Hudson River in the west and was an integral part of Libeskind's proposal, remains exposed.  Walker and Arad were selected from more than 5,000 entrants in the World Trade Center Site Memorial Competition in January 2004. Construction of the memorial is due to be completed by September 11, 2011. From watching the documentary, I learned that a pear tree which survived the towers' collapse has been replanted in the memorial garden. I also learned that the Pentagon victims' names are located together on the bronze rim around the south tower void waterfall.  
• On October 12, 2004, the LMDC announced that Gehry Partners LLP would design the site's performing arts complex. Gehry's performing arts complex will house the Joyce Theater. 
• The LMDC also announced on October 12, 2004 that Snøhetta would design the site's museum. The Snøhetta-designed museum will act as a memorial museum and visitors' center. I learned from the documentary that Libeskind designed a schematic "wedge of light" placing the building's side walls at a significant angle. On Sept 11th each year, the sun will align with the northern wall at 8:46, and with the southern wall at 10:28. This 102 minute gap represents the time when the first (North) tower was hit  and  when the last (North) tower collapsed.
• Transportation Hub. Santiago Calatrava designed the World Trade Center Transportation Hub to replace the old World Trade Center station. One will be able to walk most of the way across lower Manhattan. The cost for the transportation hub is estimated at $3.44 billion. The design is visually stunning and technically astounding.

I cannot wait to make my next trek to Manhattan to check on the progress of this most important project.