Architecture school claims strong ties to new World Trade Center designs
Few would guess that the big brown building between the Frist Campus Center and McCosh Hall, home to the University's architecture school, has drawn together half the teams competing to redesign the World Trade Center site and lower Manhattan.The six teams, three of which have University-affiliated members, have eight weeks and $40,000 to create a comprehensive vision for lower Manhattan.Seven Princeton-affiliated architects, including five faculty members and two alumni, are on three different teams."It's a huge opportunity to do something with the city, to rebuild the city for the 21st century," said Stan Allen GS '88, dean of the architecture school and a member of the team from the architecture firm Skidmore, Owings and Merrill."Given how small our faculty is, it's pretty extraordinary that we're represented on three of the six teams," Allen said.Allen attributed the high number of University architects on the teams to the architecture school's focus on exactly the kind of issues the assignment involves.Jesse Reiser, assistant professor and a member of the United Architects group, echoed this idea.