Minoru Yamasaki, 1968-72

WORLD TRADE CENTER – Minoru Yamasaki & Associates and Emery Roth & Sons. [Architectural plans for the World Trade Center.] The Port of New York Authority, 1968-72.

Over 600 pages of reduced-size architectural plans for the original World Trade Center complex, dated between 1968-1972. The plans cover four buildings, including Tower A (1 World Trade; built 1966-72), Tower B (2 World Trade; built 1966-73), Northeast Plaza Building (5 World Trade; built 1970-72), U.S. Custom House (6 World Trade; built 1970-73), as well as Sub Grade. The sixth volume is without a cover page but includes further architectural drawings relating to the complex. Minoru Yamasaki was the lead architect, with Emery Roth & Sons as associate architects and the original World Trade Center opened on 4 April 1973. The present appears to be a complete set of plans for the complex. Plans of any kind are very rare; according to press over the past few years, most blueprints and plans were either housed at WTC and therefore lost in the 2001 attacks or discarded by the architects—none are recorded at area museums or libraries including 9/11 Memorial & Museum, New York Public Library, The Port Authority of New York & New Jersey, the Center for Architecture, or Avery Archictural & Fine Arts Library at Columbia University. An incomplete set of plans derived from the Yamasaki offices came to light in 2015, and in 2018 plans (including large-scale blueprints) from the library of Joseph Solomon, an Emery Roth architect, made headlines in Denver after his descendants discarded them on trash day and was sold privately in the spring of 2020.

Six volumes, 460 x 630mm. Diazo prints; each volume backed with cardboard and secured with aluminum fasteners (some spotting to top leaf of Sub Grade volume). Provenance: Port of New York Authority (letter to:) – the consignor.