Tony Hiss, the author of Experience of Place, lead a panel featuring Carol Willis, director, The Skyscraper Museum; John Kriskiewicz, architectural historian; and Anthony Robins, historian, and author of The World Trade Center. The discussion centered on how the events of September 11, which took an unimaginable toll on human life, also erased what was perhaps the most powerful and defining element of Manhattan’s urban landscape. The World Trade Center was a subject of debate within the architectural community, and captured the imagination of the public, from the moment its first steel girders rose into the sky. Why was it built and what were the design and engineering innovations that made it possible? What did the structures, and their use, mean to us as a society?
