Two years after the attacks of September 11, a competition was launched by the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, a public entity responsible for the reconstruction of Ground Zero, to define the outline of the future World Trade Center. In February 2003, the project of the American architect Daniel Libeskind was selected.

NextBuild reveals his plan for you.

Entitled "Foundations of Memory", the plan by Daniel Libeskind has a specificity to preserve the foundations of the old Twin Towers. The project selected in February 2003 was subsequently revised and clarified. The idea of the Freedom Tower has evolved. This will not be designed by Daniel Libeskind, visible on these images. And its name was changed in March 2009 for One World Trade Center.

It’s the project of the architect David Childs, from the agency SOM, which was incorporated. Initially named Freedom Tower, it became in March 2009 the One World Trade Center in tribute to the World Trade Center. The 1776 feet high (541 m) of the tower are a reference to the date of American independence.

Tower “One World Trade Center” faces the Statue of Liberty. It dominates the city where it should become the new symbol.

The tower “One World Trade Center” will house over 241 000 m², offices, restaurants, recreational areas, and the MTVA (Alliance Television Manhattan). It will also provide direct access to the transport hall.

Over a large reception hall will be 69 floors of offices, and at the top, there will be two "towers" in the form of a large bay of windows and a terrace, respectively placed at 415 m and 416 m, heights of the old Twin Towers.

Tower 2 (200 Greenwich Street) was designed by the renowned British architect Norman Foster. It will consist of four elements, beveled on the top, inclined toward the memorial.

The tower designed by Norman Foster, 382 m high and 78 floors, is composed of 4 buildings arranged around a central column screwdriver.

After the Freedom Tower, this tower will be the highest in New York, it beats the Empire State Building.

About the building, Sir Norman Foster said: "The impressive height of the tower celebrates the spirit from the outset led Manhattan building high, and the top diamond- shaped is a model in the line of the skyscrapers of the city. " Construction began in 2007 and be completed by 2013.

The project selected for Tower 3 is the one of the British architect Richard Rogers. Rogers has especially designed with Renzo Piano the Georges Pompidou Center in Paris and received in 2007, the Pritzker Prize, equivalent to the "Nobel of architecture".

The building will be located on a pedestrian esplanade. It was designed to fit perfectly in this environment: the ground floor is exactly at the level of the street "active" facades, they are covered with issues to enter and leave the building.

For the smallest tower of the World Trade Center (288 m high and 61 floors), located at 150 Greenwich Street, the architect Fumihiko Maki was chosen. By far, the building resembles a huge mirror which reflects the Memorial.

Tower 7 is the only one to have been rebuilt in the new World Trade Center.

The Eiffel Tower is a hundred twenty years!

On 31 March 1889 was inaugurated the Eiffel Tower, highlight of the Universal Exhibition in Paris. The construction contract was signed on 8 January 1887 urged the Minister of Industry, also commissioner general of the Exposition, Gustave Eiffel and Paris. He stated that the property of that metal would turn the city (rather than the State) after twenty years.



A "vicious column sheet" saved in extremis

Two years of editing ... and critics!

It was so much courage to the Minister to authorize the construction of a tower, there is protest. His goal was to testify "to the industrial power of the country, document the considerable progress made in the art of metal, to celebrate the unprecedented rise of civil engineering in this century and draw many visitors, but the artists see "a tower vertiginously ridiculous, overlooking Paris, and a gigantic black factory chimney, crushing its barbaric mass Notre-Dame, the Sainte-Chapelle, the Tour Saint-Jacques, the Louvre, the dome of the Invalides, the arc de Triomphe ....
A letter of protest, signed by famous painters, de Maupassant, Gounod and many writers, is published on 14 February in "Le Temps". And critics will continue throughout the construction of this "odious column of bolted tin" ...

The inauguration of 31 March 1889

The Universal Exposition opened its doors in May 6, but the government wants the closure of the site is marked with a separate opening. On 31 March 1889, scaffolds are gone and the tower itself in all its splendor. The official climbing, with champagne, the 1 710 steps to the summit, where Gustave Eiffel hoisted a giant flag. The Eiffel Tower was born.
It will be successful we know. The Expo draws 32 million visitors, a record, and two million will bold up the tower. Even today, now a historical monument in 1964, it remains the most visited France more than six million tourists a year!


Saved in extremis from the case



In 1910, ownership of the Eiffel Tower was to be transferred from the State, which previously provided the backup, the city of Paris, who had every intention of ensuring the demolition of the building useless.
But at the very beginning of the twentieth century, the wireless telephone. Eiffel offers the Department of War to the tower at its disposal to test connections TSF. From 1905, the tower provides communication from Paris to the strongholds of the East: it is saved.


Rumors and souvenirs around the Tour

Funny anecdotes ...

During the Great Flood of Paris in 1910, a rumor claiming that the stability of the Eiffel Tower would be threatened by the infiltration and that it would be found even in one day a decrease of two inches! This is totally false (the manufacturers have planned wells in the pillars of the tower), but more than a thousand curious Parisians come up to the summit and shudder in fear of giving the illusion that it looks ...

During the First World War, the transmission apparatus in the tower to capture messages enemies. This is the tower which would have resulted in the arrest of Mata Hari.

... and fun memories

Gustave Eiffel had built an apartment on the third floor of the tower. Since he had a granddaughter there had built a swing, the highest in France surely: when she played the girl to believe it flying in the sky!

Tower Records

It is thanks to the Eiffel tower, which broadcasts from 1910 time signals received up to 5 200 km, as far as time will be unified over the entire Earth and that longitudes are to be established precisely.

It is also from the tower that will be issued the first radio in 1922 and the first television broadcast in 1935.
Every seven years, he should repaint the tower, which requires ... 50 tons of paint!

In 1925, Citroën illuminated tower at night by installing 200 000 ampoules of six different colors. In 1937, for the International Exhibition, it transformed the tower into a giant chandelier provided ten miles of fluorescent tubes of all colors. Finally, after a new lighting set up in 1985, 20 000 twinkling light bulbs are being added for 2000.

Did you finally turn that keeps growing thanks to increasingly high antennas? Of 300.65 meters high at the beginning, it goes with a new platform, at 320.75 meters in 1957 and, during a change of air, to 324 meters in 2000! An old lady growing!

Gustav Eiffel (1832 - 1923)

NextBuild will be a blog talking about the most impressing architectural buildings and constructions over ages of human achievements.
There will be pictures and technical details about each construction to illustrate for you my passion. In addition to some secretes of construction and unknow details about the most famous buildings in the world.

I'm Mehdi, 21 yo boy, medic student from Algeria.
Hope to see over here soon.

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