Architecture: The World's Most Famous Twins

"Tuesday, September 11, we walked through a door in a cold new world. Our passage was not by choice, but by wrenching, violent action. With tales of escape fresh from our lips and the pall of smoke still in the air, we are beginning again, sweeping the streets, burying the dead, clearing the debris and returning to work while shaking off terror. For many of us, Tuesday was the blackest day in our lives, unleashing nihilism and destruction on American soil."
"Despite all our momentary fears, low rise buildings and dispersal suburbs are not the best answers, but a form of capitulation. While others may offer political or military solutions to the challenge of terrorism, architects and other design professionals can hatch their own courageous plans, offering collaborative vision to lead us up, out of the ashes." -Robert Ivy, FAIA,editorial-Shaking Off Terror, Architectural Record issue October 10, 2001.

They look like what a child might draw: dual, flat topped rectangles, 110 stories each, an acre per floor, a city within a box of 50,000 souls, rising above the steeples and turrets of lower Manhattan held the title as the world's tallest buildings until the Sears Tower in Chicago then later by Tapei's Tower was much criticized earlier by critics as a non-architecture box with no soul, but at time passed, it's simplicity and it's unique structural framing of ribbon columns, it aged beautifully and stood as a significant symbol of America's 20th Century modernity, power and financial leadership. It competed gracefully with the great monuments of the Chrysler Building and the Empire State, each a symbol of their times. Difficult as it maybe the imagine - the famous NYC postcard will never be the same again.

The Twin Towers at Dusk, Lanterns Over Hudson