New York, World Trade Center

September 8, 2006 – April 15, 2007
“GIANTS: The Twin Towers & the Twentieth Century,” commemorates the original World Trade Center, viewing its creation in the context of the technological ambitions of the 1960s and the hundred-year evolution of New York’s skyline.On their completion in 1971 and 1973, the Twin Towers were both the tallest and the largest skyscrapers in the world. Innovative engineering carried the structures to 110 stories, at 1362 and 1368 feet, and floors of nearly an acre multiplied the space of each tower into more than 4 million square feet. The scale of these giants has been exceeded only once in history, by the contemporary Sears Tower in 1974. By comparison, the Freedom Tower, the largest building planned for Ground Zero, will contain only 2.6 million square feet, about two-thirds of their volume.
January 1, 2006 – June 30, 2006

Just six blocks south of Ground Zero, The Skyscraper Museum opened an exhibition on the World Trade Center that featured the original model created for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey by the architect Minoru Yamasaki.

September 10, 2002 – December 31, 2003
On September 10, 2002, the first phase of the Viewing Wall at Ground Zero was inaugurated by Governor George Pataki and other dignitaries at ceremonies commemorating the anniversary of 9/11. The simple design of the wall, a screen-like grid of galvanized steel, allowed visitors to see into the Trade Center site and also carried a series of large fiberglass panels that feature information on the buildings and rebuilding, as well as history panels. Special alcoves of recessed bays contain panels with all the names of the victims of September 11, 2001.

 
The Skyscraper Museum collaborated with the Port Authority, the design firm Pentagram, and the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC) to provide the history panels for the Viewing Wall. The Museum provided the images and captions that allow visitors to better understand the context of the construction of the Twin Towers and the urban history of the Trade Center site.
 

The second phase of the Viewing Wall was completed in September 2003. The Liberty Street side of the site has 17 history panels that picture the evolution of lower Manhattan from colonial times through the Twin Towers in a series of maps, skyline views, historic photographs, and postcards.

February 5, 2002 – May 2, 2002

The following site is a tribute to the Twin Towers, examining the history of the complex in its conception, design, and construction from the 1960s through the mid-1970s — and their destruction on the morning of 9/11.

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