Santiago Calatrava's World Trade Center Transfer Station - "White Ghost"

Qingdong Meng

Sydney School of Architecture, Design and Planning, University of Sydney, Sydney, 2006, Australia

Abstract: On March 4, 2016, the new World Trade transportation hub was reopened. As one of the important projects for the reconstruction of the World Trade Center zone during the 911 terrorist attack, it was displayed in the ruins in an extremely strange manner. The leading architect Santiago Calatrava called it “a bird being released from a child’s hand”. There is no doubt that this transportation hub has been full of controversy since its birth. Can this architecture bear the weight of history? I will illustrate this blot in New York from multiple angles. The earliest World Trade Center metro station was completed in 1971. Located underneath the old Twin Towers, the 20th-century metro station did not have much above-ground building. As two high-rise buildings collapsed in the terrorist attack, the metro station suffered a devastating blow.

Keywords: Santiago calatrava; World Trade Center transfer station