World Trade Center and Rebuilding

Through several past exhibitions, such as WTC Monument and GIANTS: The Twin Towers and the Twentieth Century, The Skyscraper Museum has examined the history of the World Trade Center complex in its conception, design, and construction from the 1960s through the mid-1970s. The South Gallery features photographs, film, and models of the original World Trade Center.

This section of the permanent exhibition addresses both the history of the original Twin Towers and the rebuilding at Ground Zero over the decades after the tragic events of 9/11. This content is displayed as a timeline in the gallery’s south wall in a mural 29 feet wide by 11 feet tall wall and is stratified in three thematic zones as shown in the image below: Timeline, Construction Views, and Master Plans.

“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.