 Construction begins | Remembering
The World Trade Center
New York, New York
It took from 1970 to 1977 to construct the towers.
Architect, Minoru Yamaski & Associates with Emery Roth and Sons
demolished by terrorist attack on September 11,2001
The World Trade Center consisted of two 110-story buildings (known as the "Twin Towers") and five smaller buildings. The buildings were light, designed to keep the wind bracing on the outside surfaces.
Architect Minoru Yamasaki studied over a hundred models before adopting the twin tower plan. Plans for a single tower were rejected because the size was cumbersome and impractical. Plans for several towers "looked too much like a housing project," Yamasaki said. The World Trade Center Towers were among the tallest buildings in the world, and contained nine million square feet of office space.
Tower One was 1,368 feet (414 meters) tall.
Tower Two was 1,362 feet (412 meters) tall.
Each tower was 64 m square.
Each tower stood 411 m above street level.
The Towers had a height-to-width ratio of 6.8.
The Tower facades were constructed of aluminum and steel lattice.
Each tower used a lightweight tube construction with 244 closely spaced columns on the outer walls.
There were no interior columns in the Tower office spaces.
Each tower contained 104 passenger elevators.
Each tower had 21,800 windows.
Each tower weighed about 500,000 tons.
About 50,000 people worked in the World Trade Center complex. |  |
