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One World Trade Center's New Spire Will be Coverless

Courtesy of PANYNJ

Rendering of 408-ft-tall spire of future tallest building in the Western Hemisphere shows no cladding.

Courtesy of PANYNJ

Older rendering shows a spire with a wrapping, as designed by SOM.

The future 408-ft-tall spire of the under-construction One World Trade Center has officially lost its cladding. On Aug. 7, the developers—the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey and the Durst Organization—issued 13 new renderings of the 3-million-sq-ft project, which is planned at a height of 1,776 ft. It is touted as the future tallest building in the Western Hemisphere.

News broke about the design change several months ago but the developers did not release any drawings until yesterday.

Condé Nast leased nearly 1.2 million sq ft on 25 floors of the building, sited in Lower Manhattan. Two other smaller tenants have leased a total of 460,000 sq ft.

The height of the tower, designed by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill LLP, is currently 1,368 ft. The work is scheduled to be completed in early 2014. Last summer, the scheduled opening was 2013.

Nadine M. Post, ENR's former editor-at-large for buildings, is an award-winning journalist with 45 years of experience covering trends, issues, innovations, controversies and challenging projects. Post has written about many industry giants, including 10 ENR Award of Excellence winners. And she has covered disasters, failures and attacks, including the 1993 bombing and the 2001 destruction of the World Trade Center. Project stories include the redevelopment of the World Trade Center; the 828-meter-tall Burj Khalifa; Los Angeles’ Disney Concert Hall; and Seattle's Bullitt Center and Rainier Square Tower. In 1985, Post wrote McGraw-Hill's book Restoring the Statue of Liberty (1986) for the restoration’s architects—Richard S. Hayden and Thierry W. Despont.

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