Title: Lower Manhattan 1973
Subtitle: The Twin Towers, 1973
Text: Simple, slender, silver, and soaring were the aesthetics of the Twin Towers. Also key was their off-center pairing, which charged the space between with as much dynamic energy as the solid shafts.
The sheer size of the towers, a quarter of a mile high and containing more than four million square feet each, established their historical importance. To be both big and tall was a phenomenon of the 1960s, the apogee in the century's evolution of skyscraper size. The same "can-do" competitive spirit that fueled the Space Race and moon shots inspired architects and engineers to explore new structural systems in a series of 100-story-or-taller towers that included the World Trade Center and the John Hancock Building and Sears Tower in Chicago. Recent spires have been arguably taller, but none have been as large in floor area as the super-skyscrapers designed in the 1960s.
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