American Experience
The Center of the World: Interview Outtakes

Leslie Robertson:
video | transcript

The Trade Center's Sculptural Quality 1 -- The Trade Center's Sculptural Quality2 -- Close Columns and Narrow Windows3 -- The World Trade Center and Empire State Building4 -- The Skin Structure of the Trade Center5 -- Wind Load and the Towers6 -- Differences Between the Two Towers

Mike Wallace Pete Hamill Carol Willis Guy Tozzoli
Leslie Robertson Camilo José Vergara Niall Ferguson Philippe Petit
William Langewiesche Ed Koch Mario Cuomo Ada Louise Huxtable

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It's often in the world where I live, in the world of architecture, that an idea jells really fast. And the concept of the World Trade Center came together with enormous rapidity. Sure, after we got started on it, it got taller and there were changes, of course. Constantly evolving. But the fundamental of it was born almost immediately. And it was born, in my view, more as a sculptural form than as an architectural one. And indeed later on, when the architectural world kind of turned away from the project -- although it later returned, but it turned away for many years -- it still remained in the heart and minds of sculptors as a beautiful place in New York City.