World Trade Center Master Plan

In 2002, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC) launched an international competition to redevelop the 16 acres in Lower Manhattan devastated by the terrorist attacks of September 11. Studio Libeskind’s proposal, Memory Foundations, was selected as the winning master plan.

In developing the design, Daniel Libeskind worked closely with stakeholders, survivors, and the public—recognizing that the challenge was not simply architectural but deeply human. The plan sought to balance remembrance with renewal, preserving the memory of the tragedy while restoring vitality to one of New York’s most significant neighborhoods.

At the heart of the concept is openness, light, and memory. The center of the site remains unbuilt—a space of illumination and reflection that anchors the entire plan. Water was incorporated into the memorial to create a contemplative atmosphere, softening the sounds of the city and preserving the original footprints of the Twin Towers as sacred voids.

Surrounding towers were positioned along the site’s perimeter, their footprints minimized to reduce shadows and maintain sunlight across the plaza. This configuration established an open, luminous landscape where visitors navigate by light rather than walls. The towers rise in a spiral within the restored street grid, culminating in One World Trade Center—a 1,776-foot-high symbol of freedom that recalls the year of American independence and echoes the torch of the Statue of Liberty.

A defining feature of the plan is the “wedge of light” on the eastern edge of the site, carefully aligned so that each September 11, sunlight illuminates the memorial plaza between 8:46 a.m. and 10:28 a.m.—the precise times when the Twin Towers were struck and fell. This celestial alignment transforms the site into a living monument: a calendar of light, a civic axis of remembrance, and a beacon of renewal.

The plan also called for the exposure and preservation of the original slurry wall—the massive retaining structure that held back the waters of the Hudson River. Incorporated into the 9/11 Memorial Museum and the PATH station, it stands as a powerful symbol of endurance and the human spirit, grounding the project both literally and emotionally in the city’s bedrock.

More than a master plan, Memory Foundations represents an act of collective remembrance—an urban framework where the rebirth of Lower Manhattan is guided not only by architecture, but by light, time, and the enduring presence of memory itself.