by Nathan Brockman
The master planner of the World Trade Center site, the architect Daniel Libeskind, has told a community meeting in lower Manhattan that he “fought for” the integration of St. Paul’s Chapel into the landscape of the redeveloped site.
A concern of Trinity Parish is that St. Paul’s and its churchyard not be isolated by towering skyscrapers hulking on the site’s northeastern edge, directly in front of chapel gates.
At the meeting, Libeskind said that a prominent feature of his plan, the “wedge of light,” was “designed to bring St. Paul’s Chapel into the site.” The wedge of light is a corridor free of buildings through which morning sunlight will stream to the memorial site on the mornings of September 11 each year.
Libeskind said he was drawn to St. Paul’s by the architectural challenge inherent in the contrasting scales of “the world’s tallest building” and the diminutive chapel, built in 1766. For Libeskind, paying heed to the chapel was “not just about” it being the place George Washington prayed after his inauguration, but rather that St. Paul’s was a “sensitive, beautiful church.”
In current plans, a swath of green across from the churchyard exposes open space between the chapel and the nearest office buildings, which may rise 60 stories.
However, Libeskind is not the only creative force to bear on the future of the site. He deferred questions regarding the memorial, the Freedom Tower, and the transportation center to the teams heading up those projects, members of which were not present.
Also at the meeting, the second of the two tales of religious edifices at ground zero continued. Unlike St. Paul’s, St. Nicholas’ Greek Orthodox Church, on the opposite boundary of the site, was destroyed by falling debris on 9/11. Libeskind said that he had met with leaders from the church, that he was deeply moved by them, and that the church would be rebuilt where it had stood.
Libeskind was the featured speaker at an event hosted by Wall Street Rising Downtown Information Center.
Posted on Trinity News January 22, 2004
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