1. Decoding the 4 World Trade Center
Hao Wu, hw2516
The 4 World Trade Center is built
on the place where the old nine-
story 4 World Trade Center stood.
The old 4 World Trade Center was
damaged beyond repair as a result
of the 911 attacks and was later
demolished to make space for the
new one. So the new building is
built on the sacrifice and vanish of the old one caused by the 911 attack.
But we can’t find any inherit on the new 4 World Trade Center from the old one, or any connections
between the new building and the 911 event. The footprint is smaller than the original one because
of recovering the city’s grid. And the facade, material, structure are all different from the old one.
And, of course, the tower’s mass is not the same as the old nine-story one. The architect, Fumihiko
Maki, cut off one corner of the original parallelogram mass, by doing this he created a new big facade
facing the One World Trade Center with a pretty good view of New York City, and a hanging garden
where you can have a straight sight to the One World Trade Center, but you can hardly see the 911
Memorial Park right beneath it. The southwest and northeast corner of the tower are also specially
designed. But these two corners are neither toward the 911 Memorial Park nor One World Trade
Center, almost vertical to the direction toward the view of 911 Memorial Park and One World Trade
Center. The two corners run through the whole building and every floor. And the hanging garden is
just one and the facade which faces the great view only belongs to the top part of the building.

2. As we look back to the 51 Astor Place which the architect designed and was finished one year ago,
we can tell some analogical gestures in both buildings. The 51 Astor Place also has form-shifting,
and the shifting creates two terraces and eight facades. When you walk around the building you can
see it is more temporal. The entrance is only a hole made on the ground plan of the volume, the
position, the form are both not under well consideration. The two terraces look like very at will, you
can’t see their relationship to the street or surrounding context. And only one of them is open to
people, the other is for the air condition facilities, even though this terrace also has some view and
the scale of it is better for activities. The eight facades are related but very different, the architect used
too many kinds of curtain walls. On the north there are even three different kinds of curtain wall on
the same facade which looks really strange. All these details show that the building is only a generic
business building, you can’t find the elegant or elaboration.
But the 4 World Trade Center is not the same as the 51 Astor Place. The entrance of it is a big,
transparent and open lobby at the ground plan, like a crystal inserted into the volume. While entering,
you can see a huge black reflective wall which penetrate the bright glass curtain wall from outside to
the interior space continuously. Onthe black stone wall, you can see the reflect of the memorial which
reminds you of the existence of it, but the reflection is blurry because of the black stone. So, you can
feel the existence of the memorial but you can’t see it so clear like through a mirror. It remembers
you to put the memory in heart but not too deep. In the air, there is an semicircular art installation
named “Sky Memory”. It protrudes the black stone wall, hovering over the whole lobby, like a crown
of laurels hanging in the air, shows the glorious of the World Trade Center. It can also inspire the
desire of sky inside your body also because it is in the middle of the air and it has the trend to hovering
higher and higher.

3. On the 57th floor, there is a terrace created by cutting one section of the top of the building. The
terrace is so high, when you stand on it you can hardly see things on the ground. Looking forward,
you can see One World Trade Center just stand in front of you setting off by the blue sky, but only
the upper section. Then turn around, look backward, when you facing the curtain wall you can also
see the reflection of the One World Trade Center clearly. It seems you have forgotten the memorial
just beneath you. But, when you start to think about why there is a so broad space in front of you,
making the One Wold Trade Center so majesty, you will find there is the 911 Memorial Park. New
York City Ballet also filmed a special performance named “New Beginnings ” on the terrace on Sep.
12th 2013. It was at nightfall, a man and a lady dancing at the terrace in the background of the great
nocturne of New York City and One World Trade Center. You can see they tramping, seeking,
helping each other, finally they find their new hope, and then the scene focus on the One World Trade
Center and ends.
Inside the building, the architect put two deep notches there to open the corners, so there will be two
broad angles of the exterior. The two angles are neither towards the 911 memorial nor towards the
One World Trade Center. But now one of the corner is towards the Statue of Liberty, and the from
the other one you can see the whole great view of the mid-town. Actually, each plan has a 360 degree
sight of the manhattan island, because there is no columns or structures on the curtain wall. But the
architect put two corners at this diagonal which parallel with the memorial, to emphasize this two
directions, to guide people to look to the good side, the good future.
The corners and the terrace are viewing decks and a stage. As a viewing deck, the architect
intentionally put it in the middle of the building which is about 400-foot above the ground, to make
you can only see the magnificent sky line of the manhattan island which is so breathtaking anyone
will forget any unhappiness. The northeast facade of the building is facing the midtown directly, and
the northwest corner is pointing at the One World Trade Center. It guides and limits your sight and

4. also your heart to look at the the beautiful reality, the developing bustling metropolis, the bright
future. To make you hopeful not depressed, to comfort you, to inspire you. As a stage, the terrace
shows the courage and ambition of New York City, of Manhattan Island, of the downtown to the
people of USA, the people of the world, to show the NYC is not beaten as well as the country. To
show the exciting sky line of manhattan island to the world. I think the York City Ballet’s performance
is a best way to show this meaning in a artistic way. Every motion, every gesture they did are full of
the energy of renascence, to explain the architect’s abstruse concept of the building in a more
expressive and impressive way.
I think it is not simply cutting off its relationship with the original building or the event, but try to
help people look forward. History should be remembered but we should not lose ourselves in it. The
footprint is not the same as the old one, but it makes contributions to the grid, to the pedestrian, which
can bring us a better city. On the hanging garden or from the facade, we can hardly see the 911
Memorial Park, but we can feel its existence because of the open space in front of us, and we can
directly see the new One World Trade Center which symbolizes the past and the future. Although the
two corners which have broad angles of the exterior are not toward the 911 Memorial Park nor One
World Trade Center, at these two corners people can temporarily forget the pain and enjoy the great
view of the city, see the hope. Because the pain in people’s heart is so deep, people also need space
to have a rest and seek the possibilities in the future. The architect or the architecture is trying to
create a vision that reflexes the past but reminds the world to always look to the future.
By searching and reading some articles about the 4 World Trade Center, I found some evidence to
support my point of view.
“In his design for 4 World Trade Center, Mr. Maki embraced the idea that an office tower at
ground zero ought to be a respectful backdrop to the National September 11 Memorial. Because

5. of the modesty and reticence of the building’s design, it was easy to overlook it in 2006 when the it
was unveiled by Silverstein Properties alongside those of the far more expressive 2 and 3 World Trade
Center, by Norman Foster and Richard Rogers.”
“Even in its raw form, the building shows many refined touches. Mechanical louvers on the lower
floors, for instance, are arranged as thin vertical slits, an aesthetic gesture that took a lot of
complicated engineering to achieve. There are no louvers at all on the west facade, overlooking
the memorial. That made the ductwork even more tortuous.”
— < A 977-Foot Tower You May Not See, Assuming You’ve Even Heard of It > By David W.Dunlap
“What these Japanese architects seem to share is a love of sheer, unadorned neo-Modernist structures
that have been thought out to the tiniest detail and then flawlessly executed. The problem with such
architecture is that the finished result is so priestly and high-minded that it can sometimes drain all
the joy from the building, thus creating something that the discerning public admires more than it
loves.”
— < Maki’s 4 WTC offers shimmering perfection: Architecture Review > By James Gardner
These two articles tells me some interesting background and details of the project and it’s architect,
which makes me have a deeper understanding of the 4 World Trade Center. And I think the answer
of my question is getting more and more clear.
Maki is not avoid the 911 Memorial Park intentionally, but in a humble way to show the respect,
which is very easy to ignore. For instance, if the author doesn’t mention I won’t notice the west facade
of the building has no louvers which is also the architect’s own way to show the respect, veiled. Also

6. it is because of the Japanese culture which makes him did a design like this. Japanese people like
modest character, like pure and peace, and Japanese architects apply these feelings into their designs,
too create sheer, succinct architectures. In this case, the result is the building is so priestly and high-
minded which is a little hard for people to perceive and understand it’s essence.
So the special designed terrace and two corners are gestures the architect used to create the elegant
building, which is very easy for people to overlook and misread his intention. He wants an office
tower at ground plan has a respectful step aside to the National 911 Memorial, so the terrace is so
high to avoid contempt to the 911 Memorial Park, which can also show the sky line of manhattan
island to help people look forward. Also, the two corners are the same. The two corners are for people
to relax and enjoy the beautiful view of the city’s development, so it should avoid the memorial. It is
because of the respect to the memorial, not avoiding or forgetting. So it is a misreading that the
building doesn’t have enough respect to the 911 Memorial or the the sacrifice and vanish of the old
one caused by the 911 attack.