David M. Childs, architect of 1 World Trade Center, dies at 83

David M. Childs, an architect who crowned the New York City skyline with the highest building in the Americas – a new shiny 1 world shopping center instead of the twin towers destroyed on 11 September – died on Wednesday in Pelham, New York, he was 83 years old.

The cause was the dementia of the Lewy body, said his wife Annie. Mr. Childs had houses in Manhattan and Keene, NY, the couple was in Pelham to be close to two of their children.

A world shopping center (also called Torre di Libertà) It is an storage point tapered and eight years that bordered the national memorial of 11 September to Lower Manhattan. Known to millions of visitors, it is only one of a dozen transformative buildings in Manhattan that Mr. Childs and his colleagues from Skidmore, Owings & Merrill have designed from the 80s to the 1920s. Some are clear evocations of modernism of the mid -century; Others evoke the most decorative towers of the jazz era.

Paul GoldbergerA former architecture critic at the Times and The New Yorker and author of “Up to zero: Politics, architecture and reconstruction of New York “(2004), has evaluated Mr. Childs’ career in a recent and -mail:” There was always a seriousness in its architecture, a seriousness of intention and a profound conviction in urban values. He was worried about the greatest civic good and worked hard to convince the developers to take into account. This was his legacy as much as a pure design. “

Since Mr. Childs has often dealt with projects with controversial stories and competing electoral colleges, his work could be pushed and pulled in many directions, as was at 1 World Trade Center. That design crossed at least five iterations during the prolonged reconstruction of Ground Zero, where the original twin towers found themselves up to the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001.

For admirers, the final version of 1 World Trade Center, completed in 2014, repaired a horrible hole in the skyline and symbolized civic resilience. To detractors, he showed how politics, trade and fear had strangled the imagination in the redevelopment of Ground Zero. To visitors, he was synonymous with New York himself, judging by Tchotchke market It is generated.

To Mr. Childs, 1 World Trade Center was also something else: a pylon to mark the confusion memorial. “Remember subtly, in the sky, the tragedy It happened here, “he said in 2005.

High and bress, affable and urban, Mr. Childs was the embodiment of the Ivy League of a virtuous architect. He joined Som, an architecture and historical engineering company in 1971; He held the role of president from 1991 to 1993 and again from 1998 to 2000, the only partner has never held that title twice; And he was a consultancy partner until his retirement in 2022.

Mr. Childs was the antithesis of an “opercite”, whose celebrity derives from unmistakable flowers. And he candidly recognized his place in the architectural pantheon.

“I know a lot about what I designed is not a job ““, He told Nicolai Oroussoff, then the critic of the architecture of the Times, in 2005.” But my role was different. I wanted to increase the level of daily development as much as possible. “

David Magie Childs was born on April 1, 1941 in Princeton, New Jersey, he grew up in Mount Kisco, New York, with his mother, Mary (Cole) Childs, who was executive director of the Boet Books. His father, Alton Quentin Childs, taught classics at Princeton University. His parents divorced when David was a child.

After attending the Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts, he went to Yale University, where a fascinating lesson from the architecture historian Vincent Scully He convinced him to give up studies in zoology and pursue architecture. At that time he met Anne Woolman Reeve, known as Annie, who attended the Sarah Lawrence College. They married in 1963.

His wife survives him, as well as their children, Joshua, Nicholas and Jocelyn Childs; six grandchildren; And a sister, Ellyn Allison. (When Mr. Childs was terribly sick of non -alcoholic fat liver disease in 2016, Joshua He helped save his father’s life giving much of his liver for a transplant.)

Mr. Childs obtained a Master in Architecture in Yale in 1967, then joined a presidential commission in Washington who tried to transform a dilapidated Pennsylvania Avenue into a ceremonial avenue. There he met Nathaniel A. Owings, a founding partner of Som, and Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a future senator of New York. Both have become his mentors.

Mr. Owings took Mr. Childs in 1971 to open a Washington office for Som. During that period, he worked in the Constitution gardens, an oasis of tranquility along the National Mall.

Mr. Childs moved to New York in 1984. His first big project was a 47 -storey office tower, 1 World PlazaPart of full development in Hell’s cuisine, west of Times Square. The building was completed in 1989 in a decorative postmodern style, with a brick facade and multiple setbacks.

His first projects for the Deutsche Bank Center on Columbus Circle (previously the Time Warner Center) were also in the postmodern aesthetic. But after the long -delayed project was detected by a new developer, Mr. Childs drastically revised design in 2000, with a plane for two mild parallelogram scratches with a 55 floors covered with glass. The center was opened in 2003.

The most daring design of Mr. Childs involved the Expansion of the Pennsylvania station In the post office of James A. Farley, through the eighth Avenue, a project supported by Senator Moynihan. He asked for the construction of a two -block chain glass canopy, 150 feet tall in the middle of the block, above the entrance to a new four -level passenger competition in which the mail was once ordered. In the end, a more modest version of the atrium was opened in 2021, such as the Moynihan Treen Sala al Pinno Station.

Fatuly, in July 2001, the developer Larry A. Silverstein signed a 99 -year lease contract on the World Trade Center complex with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the manufacturer and the owner. He hired Mr. Childs to prepare renovation plans for the 30 -year -old twin towers, designed by Minoru Yamasaki.

Two months later, the entire complex was in ruins, including 7 World Trade Center, which Silverstein had developed and owned. In “Zero -earth power: Politics, money and the renovation of Lower Manhattan “, Lynne B. Sagalyn wrote that Mr. Silverstein called Mr. Childs the day after the attacks, saying:” Now I want you to reconstruct these towers. You will be my Minoru Yamasaki. “

Mr. Childs refused the commission to design all the new towers, stating that architectural diversity was vital for the site. But he started working on the first assignment, to replace 7 World Trade Center. Finished in 2006, the new 7 World Trade Center it is a crystalline parallelogram, meticulously detailed and located a Reopen the views along Greenwich Street This had been obscured by the previous building. It is probably the best skyscraper of Mr. Childs.

The design of 1 World Shopping Center It was a public show. Mr. Silverstein fought the port authority, who was fighting New York City, all while Mr. Childs was kidding with the architect Daniel Libeskind, that state officials had designated as a planning teacher of the shopping center website.

Mr. Libeskind imagined a tower with the symbolic height of 1,776 feet. But Mr. Silverstein has never intended to build it. Instead, he had Mr. Childs to devise alternatives, including a 2000 feet tower. A clash was inevitableresulting in a Embarrassing mash-up of the competition visions of the architects at the end of 2003. This plan was derailled in April 2005 by Security objections by the New York Police Department.

Adding to the complexity, the architect Thomas Shine sued Mr. Childs and SOM in 2004. He claimed that the design of the 1 World Trade Center had been copied by his degree work in Yale, the work known to Mr. Childs as a jurist criticize student projects. Mr. Childs and Som denied the accusation. The cause was resolved in 2006.

THE final version Della Torre was almost entirely the work of Mr. Childs. The height of the building, 1,368 feet, corresponds to that of the original 1 World Trade Center. (The official height of 1,776 feet takes into account a 408 feet tree at the top of the building.) The thin triangles of the tower seem to be diaphanous from a distance, but from the sidewalk The building recalls a fortressWith a base of cement and steel of 186 feet that safeguard the 94 floors above the attacks.

Among other projects by Mr. Childs in Manhattan there were 72 floors 35 Hudson IArdecompleted in 2019; 47 floors 383 Madison AvenueNear Grand Central Terminal, completed in 2001; and 42 floors 1540 BroadwayOn Times Square, completed in 1990.

Out of New York, one of the passions of Mr. Childs was the American Academy in Rome, a center for independent study in fine arts and humanities. He helped to drive A renewal of its McKIM building, Mead & White On the centenary of the Academy, in 1994 and held the role of president of the Academy from 2006 to 2008.

The second home of Mr. Child was a family complex in the hamlet of Keene, in the state of New York, east of Lake Placid. Speaking with Lauren Elkies of The real deal In 2011, he said: “Go up there at the top of the mountain and see these 6 million acres in the Adirondack park and suddenly you realize that all these things we do every day are not so important.”

Ash Wu Contributed relationships.