Who built the World Trade Center

Q. Who was Minoru Yamasaki

A. Minoru Yamasaki�was born� into a poor family in Seattle in 1912. Intent on becoming an architect, Yamasaki worked for five summers in an Alaskan fish cannery, earning enough money to put himself through the University of Washington.�He left�Seattle in 1934, arriving in Manhattan with just $40 to his name.

�He held a number of design positions in New York and, from 1943 to 1945, was an instructor in architectural design at Columbia University. In 1945 he moved to Detroit, becoming chief designer for the large architectural firm of Smith, Hinchman and Grylls. In 1949 he and partners George Hellmuth and Joseph Leinweber formed their own firm.

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He is known for designs that combine aesthetic appeal with functional efficiency. Yamasaki� preferred delicate, refined materials such as wood and polished steel to the more conventional rough concrete and brick, so popular in the architecture between the 1950s and 1970s.

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After becoming one of the USA's most celebrated post-war architects, Yamasaki died in Detroit in 1986.

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Q. What did he design

A. The first big commission of his partnership with Hellmuth and Leinweber was the Lambert-St Louis Municipal Air Terminal (1951-6), a job that set the standard for many airport buildings designed by top architects all over the USA in the 1950s and 1960s. On the strength of this the United States State Department commissioned him to build a new consulate in Kobe, Japan.

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Other achievements include the United States Science Pavilion at the Seattle World's Fair (1962); Pruitt-Igoe Public Housing, St Louis, Missouri (1955, demolished 1972); the American Concrete Institute, Detroit, Michigan (1958);

Dhahran Air Terminal, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia (1959-1961); Century Plaza Hotel, Century City, Los Angeles (1961-6); Temple Beth-El, at Bloomfield Township, Michigan (1968-74); Performing Arts Center, Tulsa, Oklahoma (1973-76); Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency Headquarters, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (1973-82).

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Q. And the Word Trade Center

A. Other than the 110-story twin towers, which rose 417m and 415m (1,362ft and 1,368ft) in height, the complex consisted of seven buildings and a shopping concourse. Owned by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the ground was broken on 5 August 1966 and the final ribbon-cutting ceremony took place on 4 April 1973.

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An impressive addition to the New York skyline and a must-see tourist attraction, the twin towers - although not universally admired - featured in the 1976 remake of King Kong. They�took the role played by the Empire State Building in the 1933 original.

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Yamasaki said of his design: 'The World Trade Center should, because of its importance, become a living representation of man's belief in humanity, his need for individual dignity, his belief in the cooperation of men and, through this cooperation, his ability to find greatness.'

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Q. What was so unusual about the design

A. The low-level buildings are pretty conventional, but with the towers Yamasaki re-examined the whole principal of skyscraper design.

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A conventional building has a central load-bearing core containing the lift-shafts and from which the floors radiate out, often with interior columns for extra support between the floors. This structure is then covered in an outer skin, the windows and walls.

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In the World Trade Center towers Yamasaki inverted this principal: the outer 'walls' were made of 5.7m (19ft) steel columns spaced 6.7m (22ft) apart, and these took the weight of the structure. The floors sat on trusses which extended across to the central core, which provided rigidity but didn't take the weight.

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Q. Why did the towers collapse

A. The total failure of the structures probably arises from the radical design. This not in any way to suggest that there is anything inherently unstable about such a method of construction: no architect can reasonably expect an airliner full of highly volatile fuel to crash into their building.

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It seems that what caused the buildings to give way was the intensity of the fire which, after an hour or more, weakened the steel shell to a degree that one or more levels collapsed. The weight of the floors above crashing down on was enough to bring the whole structure down, each floor adding to the weight as it fell and thus accelerating the process.

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The towers did not fall in exactly the same fashion, however. While the North Tower collapsed directly downwards, the top section of the South Tower fell over to one side initially, suggesting that the frame had only partially failed. However, the end result was the same.

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Q. Hadn't the towers been targeted by terrorists before

A. On February 26 1993 a large bomb inside a van in the garage underneath the complex was detonated, killing six people and injuring 1,042.

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While the explosion created an enormous crater right underneath the towers, they were saved -�a cruel irony�it seems now - by the very structural device, the steel outer frame, which failed in the recent attacks. A conventional skyscraper might not have held up�to even that�destabilising explosion.

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by Simon Smith