LMDC Chooses Gehry to Design WTC Arts Center
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
Renowned architect Frank Gehry will design the performing arts center at the World Trade Center site and the Norwegian firm Snohetta will design the museum complex, redevelopment officials announced yesterday.
The Lower Manhattan Development Corp. announced the selection of the architects and said schematic designs for the cultural buildings would be completed in early 2005.
“These dynamic architects will design fitting homes for the world class cultural institutions which will be located at the World Trade Center site,” Governor Pataki said in a statement.
The development corporation earlier this year announced the selection of the Joyce International Dance Center, the Signature Theatre, the Freedom Center and the Drawing Center to take up residence at ground zero after more than 100 arts groups applied for space there.
“Selecting the architect was a privilege and a tremendous responsibility,” said the executive director of The Joyce Theater Foundation Inc., Linda Shelton.
“We are thrilled to be working with Frank Gehry, one of the most renowned architects in the world,” Ms. Shelton added.
The director of the Drawing Center, Catherine de Zegher, and the center’s president, George Negroponte, said, “The Drawing Center is thrilled by the selection of Snohetta as the architect for the museum complex at the World Trade Center site…
“The stunningly beautiful architecture of this young Norwegian firm will have a natural fluency with the memorial and the surrounding buildings.”
Mr. Gehry is best known for designing the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, and the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles.
Snohetta is an Oslo-based architecture, landscape architecture, and interior design company. It is known for its completion of the Alexandria Library in Egypt, the Norwegian Embassy in Berlin, and the soon-to-be-completed New National Opera in Oslo.