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CBS News
21-04-2025
- Entertainment
- CBS News
On this day in 1981: Joan Miró's Chicago sculpture is unveiled downtown
On April 20, 1981 — 44 years ago Sunday — a long-awaited piece of public sculpture was unveiled to a crowd on a chilly day in downtown Chicago. Going back to the 1960s, a sculpture by Spanish Catalan artist Joan Miró had been part of the plan for the plaza next to the George W. Dunne Cook County Office Building — previously known as the Cook County Administration Building and originally the Brunswick Building. The building at 69 W. Washington St. was completed in 1964, and architect Bruce Graham of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill told Betty Blum of the Society of Architectural Historians that he was talking with Miró about the sculpture when the building was still in its early planning stages. But at first, the Brunswick Corporation — which used the building as its headquarters before Cook County took over — decided not to have it built, Graham said. In the meantime, Pablo Picasso's iconic untitled sculpture in Daley Plaza — then known as Civic Center Plaza — was unveiled in 1967. The Chicago Loop Alliance said Miró's sculpture was supposed to be unveiled the same year as the Picasso, but it ended up being shelved until more than a decade later. Finally, a deal was finally reached to have it built with the cost split between the City of Chicago and private fundraisers, according to Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. At last on that chilly day a few months into President Ronald Reagan's first term, the sculpture known as "Miró's Chicago" made its debut. Joan Miró (his first name is pronounced "zho-AN") was born April 20, 1893, in Barcelona. He began business school there at the age of 14 while also attending art school, but ended up abandoning business for art studies following a nervous breakdown, according to a biography from the Guggenheim . Miró attended Francesc Gali's Escola d'Art in Barcelona between 1912 and 1915, and art dealer Josep Dalmau staged Miró's first gallery show in Barcelona in 1918, according to the Guggenheim. He went on to split his time between Paris and Mont-roig, Spain, and he joined the Surrealist group — an avant-garde creative movement led by poet André Breton. Miró's work appeared in the First Surrealist Exhibition in Paris in 1925 — along with works by other masters such as Max Ernst, Paul Klee, Man Ray, and Picasso himself. But as noted by the Metropolitan Museum of Art , Miró was branching out from the Surrealists by the end of the 1920s. He began to experiment with novel materials and artistic techniques, and began developing collages, sculptures, and artworks on paper during the 1930s, the Met noted. In 1941, Miró had his first major museum retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. After World War II, he settled in Palma, Majorca, Spain, where he began working with ceramics and making models for large-scale abstract sculptures, the Met noted. "Miró's Chicago" — completed toward the end of the artist's life — was just such a creation. The 36-foot sculpture, originally known as "The Sun, the Moon and One Star," was built from steel, concrete, bronze, wire mesh, and some colorful ceramic tile. A description published by the Public Art Archive describes the sculpture as being imbued with "the mystical presence of an earth deity, both cosmic and worldly." The bell-shaped base — with its red, white, black, and blue tile patterns — represents Miró's association of the female form with the earth, the spherical center represents the moon, and the shape of the face is based on a ceramic hook, the Public Art Archive notes. The fork on the top of the sculpture's head represents a star, with each tine representing a ray of light, according to the Public Art Archive. Ahead of the long-anticipated unveiling of the sculpture, Bill Kurtis and his Focus Unit celebrated the artwork and the artist with a special Channel 2 News report — which included a visit to Majorca, Spain for an interview with Miró. When asked what he hoped people looking at his work on Washington Street in Chicago would think about upon seeing it, Miró said through an interpreter that he hoped they would "think that they're looking at something marvelous, and that tickles them up here," while rubbing his forehead. This report, unfortunately, is not available in the CBS Chicago archive. Monday, April 20, 1981, was Miró's 88th birthday. It was also the day that Mayor Jane Byrne pulled a cord to unveil Miró's iconic contribution to the aesthetics of downtown Chicago. But everything did not quite go as planned that day. In a Chicago Tribune report, Kurtis noted that he and CBS Chicago talk show host Lee Phillip co-anchored the dedication of Miró's sculpture — this, unfortunately, is not available in the CBS Chicago archive either. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra was also supposed to play, but it was too cold and their instruments risked being damaged. A massive crowd turned out nonetheless to see Mayor Byrne unveil the sculpture sometimes called "Miss Chicago." "As the years go by, as we continue to appreciate the work of the masters, that I myself will know that not just the city that works, but the city that has sort of a little heart, played a role today in Joan Miró's birthday in saying the commitment that was made to you in the 50s — to you, Picasso, and to you, Miró — is now completed," Mayor Byrne said. "It's a city that loves you. It's a city that loves its art. It's a city that loves itself. And for that reason, I'm delighted that today we have the completion of a promise." Leo Arnaud's "Bugler's Dream" — better known as the Olympic Anthem — played as Mayor Byrne tugged a rope to send the yellow veil dropping free. The veil did not cooperate at first, and the fur coat-clad mayor had to keep tugging repeatedly to get the veil off. The crowd applauded when the veil fell and the sculpture was revealed at last. One man called the sculpture "the high energy and style that's Chicago." But speaking to the late Channel 2 reporter and intrepid adventurer Bob Wallace, few seemed to be in agreement that it looked particularly like a woman. One man even called the sculpture "ugly" and said he didn't like it at all. It took less than two weeks for Miró's Chicago to be back in the headlines again. On May 1, 1981, as a May Day rally was going on downtown, someone threw a container of oil-based red paint at the base of the sculpture. Police quickly arrested art student Crister Nyholm, 24, of Chicago's Ravenswood neighborhood. Police said at the time that they were already in the area when the vandalism happened, and responded to the scene to find Nyholm just sitting there staring at what he'd done. As Channel 2 News reporter Frank Currier reported, Nyholm told police at the time that he vandalized the sculpture because he hated it, and it was something he had to do. Third Coast Review reported that art conservators from the Art Institute of Chicago stripped off the paint, and a judge sentenced Nyholm to probation and imposed a fine. Miró died Dec. 25, 1983, at the age of 90. In 2025, 44 years after it was unveiled, Miró's Chicago still stands proudly in the plaza between the George W. Dunne Cook County Office Building and the Chicago Temple. The sculpture will be covered temporarily this spring and summer during renovations of the walkways surrounding the county office building, and all measures are being taken to ensure it is protected to go back on proud display once the work is done.
Yahoo
28-03-2025
- General
- Yahoo
David Childs, architect of One World Trade Center that rose on Twin Towers site after 9/11, dies
David Childs, the lead architect of the One World Trade Center skyscraper that rose from the site where the Twin Towers collapsed in New York City during the 9/11 attacks, has died. He was 83. Childs died on Wednesday in Pelham, New York, from Lewy body dementia, which had been diagnosed in September, his son, Nicholas Childs said. While he was perhaps best known for his work on One World Trade Center, considered to be the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere, Childs also was instrumental in other important projects, including a new master plan for the National Mall in Washington, D.C., an expansion of Dulles International Airport in Virginia and the 7 World Trade Center building in Manhattan, according to his firm, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. 'David's contribution to the firm was extensive and profound, and we will always be grateful to David for his leadership, his impact, and his friendship,' Skidmore, Owings & Merrill said in a statement. 'We will miss him dearly and extend our condolences and deepest sympathies to his family.' A fond memory that Nicholas Childs has was when his father drew a rendering of what the One World Trade Center property would look like while they were out having lunch in New York, some years after 9/11 but well before the plans were finalized. 'He picked up a paper napkin, took out a pen, and drew what became the ultimate design of the building on the napkin for me,' Nicholas Childs said in a phone interview Friday, adding that he still has the drawing. He said his father was a civic-minded architect who would often use a quote by 20th century American-German architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe — 'God is in the details.' 'He cared deeply about those details and making something beautiful,' Nicholas Childs said. 'But he also wanted to make sure, I think as any great architect, that it was a balance of form and function, that it worked for people.' The 1,776-foot-tall (540-meter-tall) One World Trade Center, once known as the Freedom Tower, is the centerpiece of the redevelopment of ground zero, along with the memorial pools placed where the Twin Towers stood. Opened in 2014, it sports a steel and glass structure that rises into the sky with a tapered, eight-triangle body, topped by a 408-foot-tall (124-meter-tall) needle. The final design was produced after contentious negotiations between Childs and Daniel Libeskind, who designed the overall plan for the site, and arguments between government officials over what should be built at ground zero and objections by some relatives of 9/11 victims to the design of the Trade Center memorial. Libeskind had drawn the first plans for building, a twisting glass skyscraper with an off-center spire meant to invoke the Statue of Liberty. Childs produced a sleeker version of Libeskind's design, then reworked it after police expressed concerns that the building was not sturdy enough to withstand a truck bomb. In announcing the new design plans, Childs said the One World Trade Center tower is 'iconic, simple and pure in its form, a memorable form that will reclaim the resilience and the spirit of our democracy.' He also called it 'the safest building in the world,' with features including wider staircases, a separate stairway and elevator for firefighters, 'blast-resistant glazing' and more public stairways with direct access to the street. Childs was born in Princeton, New Jersey, in 1941 and grew up in his early childhood years in Washington, D.C., before moving to Mount Kisco, New York. He attended the private Deerfield Academy in Deerfield, Massachusetts, before going to Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, where he earned a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in architecture. He was hired by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill in 1971 for its Washington, D.C., office, where he worked on projects including a new master plan for the National Mall, the Constitution Gardens park along the mall and the Four Seasons Hotel. He transferred to the firm's New York City office in 1984 and had a hand in significant projects in the city, including 1 Worldwide Plaza in the Hell's Kitchen section of Manhattan and the Deutsche Bank Center, formerly called the Time Warner Center, with its twin skyscraper towers at Columbus Circle. Childs also worked on the U.S. embassy in Ottawa, Canada, the Canary Wharf development in London and King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. In 2004, he was honored with a Rome Prize for architecture, awarded by the American Academy in Rome for innovative work in the arts and humanities. Childs is survived by his wife, Annie; three children, Nicholas, Joshua and Jocelyn; and several grandchildren. The family is planning a small, private memorial in the coming weeks, followed by a larger service around May, Nicholas Childs said.
The Independent
28-03-2025
- General
- The Independent
David Childs, architect of One World Trade Center that rose on Twin Towers site after 9/11, dies
David Childs, the lead architect of the One World Trade Center skyscraper that rose from the site where the Twin Towers collapsed in New York City during the 9/11 attacks, has died. He was 83. Childs died on Wednesday in Pelham, New York, from Lewy body dementia, which had been diagnosed in September, his son, Nicholas Childs said. While he was perhaps best known for his work on One World Trade Center, considered to be the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere, Childs also was instrumental in other important projects, including a new master plan for the National Mall in Washington, D.C., an expansion of Dulles International Airport in Virginia and the 7 World Trade Center building in Manhattan, according to his firm, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. 'David's contribution to the firm was extensive and profound, and we will always be grateful to David for his leadership, his impact, and his friendship,' Skidmore, Owings & Merrill said in a statement. 'We will miss him dearly and extend our condolences and deepest sympathies to his family.' A fond memory that Nicholas Childs has was when his father drew a rendering of what the One World Trade Center property would look like while they were out having lunch in New York, some years after 9/11 but well before the plans were finalized. 'He picked up a paper napkin, took out a pen, and drew what became the ultimate design of the building on the napkin for me,' Nicholas Childs said in a phone interview Friday, adding that he still has the drawing. He said his father was a civic-minded architect who would often use a quote by 20th century American-German architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe — 'God is in the details.' 'He cared deeply about those details and making something beautiful,' Nicholas Childs said. 'But he also wanted to make sure, I think as any great architect, that it was a balance of form and function, that it worked for people.' The 1,776-foot-tall (540-meter-tall) One World Trade Center, once known as the Freedom Tower, is the centerpiece of the redevelopment of ground zero, along with the memorial pools placed where the Twin Towers stood. Opened in 2014, it sports a steel and glass structure that rises into the sky with a tapered, eight-triangle body, topped by a 408-foot-tall (124-meter-tall) needle. The final design was produced after contentious negotiations between Childs and Daniel Libeskind, who designed the overall plan for the site, and arguments between government officials over what should be built at ground zero and objections by some relatives of 9/11 victims to the design of the Trade Center memorial. Libeskind had drawn the first plans for building, a twisting glass skyscraper with an off-center spire meant to invoke the Statue of Liberty. Childs produced a sleeker version of Libeskind's design, then reworked it after police expressed concerns that the building was not sturdy enough to withstand a truck bomb. In announcing the new design plans, Childs said the One World Trade Center tower is 'iconic, simple and pure in its form, a memorable form that will reclaim the resilience and the spirit of our democracy.' He also called it 'the safest building in the world,' with features including wider staircases, a separate stairway and elevator for firefighters, 'blast-resistant glazing' and more public stairways with direct access to the street. Childs was born in Princeton, New Jersey, in 1941 and grew up in his early childhood years in Washington, D.C., before moving to Mount Kisco, New York. He attended the private Deerfield Academy in Deerfield, Massachusetts, before going to Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, where he earned a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in architecture. He was hired by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill in 1971 for its Washington, D.C., office, where he worked on projects including a new master plan for the National Mall, the Constitution Gardens park along the mall and the Four Seasons Hotel. He transferred to the firm's New York City office in 1984 and had a hand in significant projects in the city, including 1 Worldwide Plaza in the Hell's Kitchen section of Manhattan and the Deutsche Bank Center, formerly called the Time Warner Center, with its twin skyscraper towers at Columbus Circle. Childs also worked on the U.S. embassy in Ottawa, Canada, the Canary Wharf development in London and King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. In 2004, he was honored with a Rome Prize for architecture, awarded by the American Academy in Rome for innovative work in the arts and humanities. Childs is survived by his wife, Annie; three children, Nicholas, Joshua and Jocelyn; and several grandchildren. The family is planning a small, private memorial in the coming weeks, followed by a larger service around May, Nicholas Childs said.
Associated Press
28-03-2025
- General
- Associated Press
David Childs, architect of One World Trade Center that rose on Twin Towers site after 9/11, dies
David Childs, the lead architect of the One World Trade Center skyscraper that rose from the site where the Twin Towers collapsed in New York City during the 9/11 attacks, has died. He was 83. Childs died on Wednesday in Pelham, New York, from Lewy body dementia, which had been diagnosed in September, his son, Nicholas Childs said. While he was perhaps best known for his work on One World Trade Center, considered to be the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere, Childs also was instrumental in other important projects, including a new master plan for the National Mall in Washington, D.C., an expansion of Dulles International Airport in Virginia and the 7 World Trade Center building in Manhattan, according to his firm, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. 'David's contribution to the firm was extensive and profound, and we will always be grateful to David for his leadership, his impact, and his friendship,' Skidmore, Owings & Merrill said in a statement. 'We will miss him dearly and extend our condolences and deepest sympathies to his family.' A fond memory that Nicholas Childs has was when his father drew a rendering of what the One World Trade Center property would look like while they were out having lunch in New York, some years after 9/11 but well before the plans were finalized. 'He picked up a paper napkin, took out a pen, and drew what became the ultimate design of the building on the napkin for me,' Nicholas Childs said in a phone interview Friday, adding that he still has the drawing. He said his father was a civic-minded architect who would often use a quote by 20th century American-German architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe — 'God is in the details.' 'He cared deeply about those details and making something beautiful,' Nicholas Childs said. 'But he also wanted to make sure, I think as any great architect, that it was a balance of form and function, that it worked for people.' The 1,776-foot-tall (540-meter-tall) One World Trade Center, once known as the Freedom Tower, is the centerpiece of the redevelopment of ground zero, along with the memorial pools placed where the Twin Towers stood. Opened in 2014, it sports a steel and glass structure that rises into the sky with a tapered, eight-triangle body, topped by a 408-foot-tall (124-meter-tall) needle. The final design was produced after contentious negotiations between Childs and Daniel Libeskind, who designed the overall plan for the site, and arguments between government officials over what should be built at ground zero and objections by some relatives of 9/11 victims to the design of the Trade Center memorial. Libeskind had drawn the first plans for building, a twisting glass skyscraper with an off-center spire meant to invoke the Statue of Liberty. Childs produced a sleeker version of Libeskind's design, then reworked it after police expressed concerns that the building was not sturdy enough to withstand a truck bomb. In announcing the new design plans, Childs said the One World Trade Center tower is 'iconic, simple and pure in its form, a memorable form that will reclaim the resilience and the spirit of our democracy.' He also called it 'the safest building in the world,' with features including wider staircases, a separate stairway and elevator for firefighters, 'blast-resistant glazing' and more public stairways with direct access to the street. Childs was born in Princeton, New Jersey, in 1941 and grew up in his early childhood years in Washington, D.C., before moving to Mount Kisco, New York. He attended the private Deerfield Academy in Deerfield, Massachusetts, before going to Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, where he earned a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in architecture. He was hired by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill in 1971 for its Washington, D.C., office, where he worked on projects including a new master plan for the National Mall, the Constitution Gardens park along the mall and the Four Seasons Hotel. He transferred to the firm's New York City office in 1984 and had a hand in significant projects in the city, including 1 Worldwide Plaza in the Hell's Kitchen section of Manhattan and the Deutsche Bank Center, formerly called the Time Warner Center, with its twin skyscraper towers at Columbus Circle. Childs also worked on the U.S. embassy in Ottawa, Canada, the Canary Wharf development in London and King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. In 2004, he was honored with a Rome Prize for architecture, awarded by the American Academy in Rome for innovative work in the arts and humanities. Childs is survived by his wife, Annie; three children, Nicholas, Joshua and Jocelyn; and several grandchildren.
New York Times
27-03-2025
- General
- New York Times
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 tallest building in the Americas — a shimmering new 1 World Trade Center in place of the twin towers destroyed on 9/11 — died on Wednesday in Pelham, N.Y. He was 83. The cause was Lewy body dementia, his wife, Annie, said. Mr. Childs had homes in Manhattan and Keene, N.Y. The couple were staying in Pelham to be near two of their children. One World Trade Center (also called Freedom Tower) is a tapering, eight-faceted exclamation point abutting the National September 11 Memorial in Lower Manhattan. Known to millions of visitors, it is just one of a dozen transformative buildings in Manhattan that Mr. Childs and his colleagues at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill designed from the 1980s to the 2010s. Some are crisp evocations of midcentury modernism; others conjure the more decorative towers of the Jazz Age. 'At SOM, you don't know what my next building will look like,' Mr. Childs told Julie Iovine of The New York Times in 2003. 'You know what a Richard Meier building will look like; there's a style. I'm more like Eero Saarinen, whom I revere. His buildings all look different.' Paul Goldberger, a former architecture critic at The Times and The New Yorker and the author of 'Up From Zero: Politics, Architecture and the Rebuilding of New York' (2004), assessed Mr. Childs's career in a recent email: 'There was always an earnestness to his architecture, a seriousness of intention and a deep belief in urbanistic values. He was concerned about the larger civic good, and he worked hard to convince developers to take this into account. This was his legacy as much as pure design.' Because Mr. Childs often tackled projects with contentious histories and competing constituencies, his work could be pushed and pulled in many directions, as it was at 1 World Trade Center. That design went through at least five iterations during the protracted rebuilding of ground zero, where the original twin towers stood until the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. To admirers, the final version of 1 World Trade Center, completed in 2014, repaired an awful hole in the skyline and symbolized civic resilience. To detractors, it demonstrated how politics, commerce and fear had strangled imagination in the redevelopment of ground zero. To visitors, it was synonymous with New York itself, judging by the tchotchke market it spawned. To Mr. Childs, 1 World Trade Center also served as something else: a pylon to mark the abutting memorial. 'It subtly recalls, in the sky, the tragedy that has happened here,' he said in 2005. Tall and bespectacled, affable and urbane, Mr. Childs was the Ivy League embodiment of a virtuoso architect. He joined SOM, a storied architecture and engineering firm, in 1971; served as its chairman from 1991 to 1993 and again from 1998 to 2000, the only partner ever to repeat in the role; and was a consulting partner until his retirement in 2022. Mr. Childs was the antithesis of a 'starchitect,' whose celebrity derives from unmistakable flourishes. And he candidly acknowledged his place in the architectural pantheon. 'I know a lot of what I've designed is not 'A' work,' he said to Nicolai Ouroussoff, then The Times's architecture critic, in 2005. 'But my role was different. I wanted to raise the level of everyday development as much as I could.' David Magie Childs was born on April 1, 1941, in Princeton, N.J. He grew up in Mount Kisco, N.Y., with his mother, Mary (Cole) Childs, who was the executive director of the Children's Book Council. His father, Alton Quentin Childs, taught classics at Princeton University. His parents divorced when David was a child. After attending Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts, he went on to Yale University, where a mesmerizing lecture by the architectural historian Vincent Scully persuaded him to forgo studies in zoology and pursue architecture instead. Around that time he met Anne Woolman Reeve, known as Annie, who was attending Sarah Lawrence College. They wed in 1963. His wife survives him, as do their children, Joshua, Nicholas and Jocelyn Childs; six grandchildren; and a sister, Ellyn Allison. (When Mr. Childs was terribly sick with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease in 2016, Joshua helped save his father's life by donating much of his own liver for a transplant.) Mr. Childs earned a master's degree in architecture at Yale in 1967, then joined a presidential commission in Washington that sought to transform a dilapidated Pennsylvania Avenue into a ceremonial boulevard. There, he met Nathaniel A. Owings, a founding partner of SOM, and Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a future senator from New York. Both became his mentors. Mr. Owings hired Mr. Childs in 1971 to open a Washington office for SOM. During that time, he worked on Constitution Gardens, an oasis of tranquillity along the National Mall. Mr. Childs moved to New York in 1984. His first big project was a 47-story office tower, 1 Worldwide Plaza, part of a full-block development in Hell's Kitchen, west of Times Square. The building was completed in 1989 in the decorative postmodern style, with a brick facade and multiple setbacks. His early designs for the Deutsche Bank Center on Columbus Circle (formerly the Time Warner Center) were also in the postmodern aesthetic. But after the long-delayed project was taken over by a new developer, Mr. Childs revised the design dramatically in 2000, with a plan for two 55-story parallelogram-shaped skyscrapers clad in glass. The center opened in 2003. Mr. Childs's most daring design involved the expansion of Pennsylvania Station into the James A. Farley Post Office, across Eighth Avenue, a project championed by Senator Moynihan. It called for the construction of a two-block-wide, 150-foot-high, concave glass canopy in the middle of the block, over the entrance to a new four-level passenger concourse where mail was once sorted. Ultimately, a more modest version of the concourse opened in 2021, as the Moynihan Train Hall at Penn Station. Fatefully, in July 2001, the developer Larry A. Silverstein signed a 99-year lease on the World Trade Center complex with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the builder and 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 lay in ruin, including 7 World Trade Center, which Mr. Silverstein had developed and owned. In 'Power at Ground Zero: Politics, Money and the Remaking of Lower Manhattan,' Lynne B. Sagalyn wrote that Mr. Silverstein called Mr. Childs the day after the attacks, saying: 'Now I want you to rebuild these towers. You're going to be my Minoru Yamasaki.' Mr. Childs declined the commission to design all the new towers, saying architectural diversity was vital to the site. But he did set to work on the first assignment, to replace 7 World Trade Center. Finished in 2006, the new 7 World Trade Center is a crystalline parallelogram, meticulously detailed and situated to reopen views along Greenwich Street that had been obscured by the previous building. It is arguably Mr. Childs's finest skyscraper. The design of 1 World Trade Center was a public spectacle. Mr. Silverstein fought the Port Authority, which was battling New York City, all while Mr. Childs was skirmishing with the architect Daniel Libeskind, whom state officials had designated as master planner of the trade center site. Mr. Libeskind envisioned a tower with the symbolic height of 1,776 feet. But Mr. Silverstein never intended to construct it. Instead, he had Mr. Childs devise alternatives, including a 2,000-foot tower. A clash was inevitable, resulting in an awkward mash-up of the architects' competing visions in late 2003. This plan was derailed in April 2005 by security objections from the New York Police Department. Adding to the complexity, the architect Thomas Shine sued Mr. Childs and SOM in 2004. He contended that the 1 World Trade Center design had been copied from his graduate work at Yale, work known to Mr. Childs as a jurist critiquing student projects. Mr. Childs and SOM denied the accusation. The suit was settled in 2006. The final version of the tower was almost entirely the work of Mr. Childs. The building's height, 1,368 feet, matches that of the original 1 World Trade Center. (The official height of 1,776 feet takes into account a 408-foot mast at the top of the building.) The tower's slender triangles look diaphanous from a distance, but from the sidewalk the building resembles a fortress, with a 186-foot concrete-and-steel base safeguarding the 94 stories above from bombings. Among Mr. Childs's other projects in Manhattan were the 72-story 35 Hudson Yards, completed in 2019; the 47-story 383 Madison Avenue, near Grand Central Terminal, completed in 2001; and the 42-story 1540 Broadway, on Times Square, completed in 1990. Outside New York, one of Mr. Childs's passions was the American Academy in Rome, a center for independent study in the fine arts and humanities. He helped lead a renovation of its McKim, Mead & White building on the academy's centenary, in 1994 and served as the academy's chairman from 2006 to 2008. Mr. Child's second home was a family compound in the hamlet of Keene, in upstate New York, east of Lake Placid. Speaking with Lauren Elkies of The Real Deal in 2011, he said, 'You go up there to the top of the mountain, and you see these 6 million acres in the Adirondack Park, and you suddenly realize that all these things we do every day are not really that important.'
