Skyscraper WTC 2 (200 Greenwich Street) is the last of the new World Trade Center complex, the construction of which has not yet begun. The tallest, first tower (SOM bureau) and the restrained fourth (project by Fumihiko Maki) have already been completed. The third, by Richard Rogers, will be completed in 2018. Simultaneously with Mackie and Rogers, Norman Foster was invited to participate in the project, but they could not find tenants for the assigned building No. 2 for a long time, and its implementation was in jeopardy - however, the tower project was developed …
As a result, the tenant was nevertheless found: it was the media corporation 21st Century Fox and News Corp, which plans to place 5,000 of its employees in the new building. According to Wired magazine, the management of 21st Century Fox (in particular, Rupert Murdoch's son James Murdoch) did not like Foster's project, and therefore BIG head Bjarke Ingels was invited instead. Foster himself, with whom journalists talked about this topic
Architectural Record, said nothing so dramatic had happened. According to him, media moguls from 21st Century Fox wanted to continue working with an architect they already knew: Ingels was invited by them to design their headquarters back in early 2015 - before they decided to settle in the WTC complex.
While Foster was proposing a fairly traditional high-rise building, BIG's architects came up with a bolder option. Their tower actively reacts to the context: in the direction of the Financial District built up with prismatic skyscrapers and the 9/11 memorial, it faces a simple narrow facade, almost indistinguishable from the neighboring buildings. At the same time, it is turned towards the Tribeca area by a "staircase" of green terraces - responding to the local lofts and roof gardens. The authors of the project see it as a "fusion" of two important Manhattan types - a modernist skyscraper and an earlier high-rise building, which steps out from the red line.
WTC 2 will reach a height of approximately 410 m (over 80 floors), with a total area of 260,000 m2. The lower half of the building will be occupied by the headquarters of 21st Century Fox and News Corp, while smaller tenants will be located above. The lowest volume of the building will completely occupy the site: there are planned studios of the media corporation and almost 10,000 m2 of cafes and shops. The lobby with an area of 3530 m2 will be connected to
the WTC transport hub, designed by Santiago Calatrava. The six office blocks-steps located above will connect wide staircases - "a cascade of public spaces". The architects propose to supplement the work areas with sports halls, a cafeteria, cinema halls, which will be connected with the aforementioned green terraces with a total area of 3530 m2.
