Editing Minoru Yamasaki (section)

=== World Trade Center ===
[[File:World Trade Center, New York City - aerial view (March 2001).jpg|thumb|The original [[World Trade Center (1973–2001)]] was the most widely-known of Yamasaki's buildings.]]
In 1962 Yamasaki and his firm were commissioned to design his most well-known project: [[World Trade Center (1973–2001)|the World Trade Center]], with [[Emery Roth & Sons]] serving as associate architects. The World Trade Center towers featured many innovative design elements to address many unique challenges at the site.

One particular design challenge related to the efficacy of the elevator system, which became unique in the world when it was first opened for service. Yamasaki employed the fastest elevators at the time, running at {{convert|1,700|ft}} per minute.  Instead of placing a traditional large cluster of full-height elevator shafts in the core of each tower, Yamasaki created the Twin Towers' "[[Sky lobby|Skylobby]]" system. The Skylobby design created three separate, connected elevator systems which would serve different zones of the building, depending on which floor was chosen, saving approximately 70% of the space which would have been required for traditional shafts. The space saved was then used for additional office space.<ref name="jaffee">Remarks by Lee K. Jaffee, World Trade Center Press Conference, New York Hilton Hotel, January 18, 1964.</ref> Internally, each office floor was a vast open space unimpeded by support columns, ready to be subdivided as the tenants might choose.

Other design challenges included anchoring the massively tall towers to the bedrock located about {{convert|80|ft}} below lower Manhattan's soft soil. Digging a large trench to the bedrock risked flooding from nearby [[New York Harbor]]. The solution employed by Yamasaki and his team of engineers was to use a [[slurry wall]]; digging very narrow trenches about {{convert|3|ft}} wide and then filling these with a slurry (a mixture of clay and water) that was dense enough to keep the surrounding water out. Pipes were then lowered into the slurry trench and concrete was pumped in. The concrete, being more dense than the slurry, sank to the bottom of the trenches all the way down to the bedrock displacing the slurry to the surface, where it was drained away. This process was repeated around the entire perimeter of the site and reinforced with steel cables to create a watertight concrete bathtub surrounding the excavation site.<ref name="Gallagher"/><ref name="How Stuff Works">{{cite web |title=How the World Trade Center Slurry Wall Works |url=https://science.howstuffworks.com/engineering/structural/world-trade-center-slurry-wall.htm |website=HowStuffWorks |language=en |date=September 13, 2011}}</ref> This slurry wall system had only been employed a few times prior in the United States and never on such a large project.<ref name="How Stuff Works"/>

A further design challenge was developing a wind-bracing system to keep the ultra tall but relatively lightweight steel and glass structures from swaying at their upper levels. Other contemporary modern skyscrapers had used centrally located cross-bracing systems located in the core of the interiors at the upper levels, but Yamasaki and structural engineer [[Fazlur Rahman Khan]] employed an exterior truss system; a network of vertical and horizontal structural elements on the exterior of the towers giving them structural support.<ref name="Gallagher"/> This external structural support system also decreased the need for large internal pillars. The external truss support system and the unique elevator configuration created more rentable space in the World Trade Centers to satisfy the owner's ([[Port Authority of New York and New Jersey|The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey]]) massive demand for {{convert|10,000,000|sqft}} of office space.<ref name="Gallagher"/>

The first of the towers was finished in 1970.<ref name="HistoryPANYNJ">{{cite web| title=History of the Twin Towers| website=Port Authority of New York and New Jersey| access-date=December 12, 2014| url=http://www.panynj.gov/wtcprogress/history-twin-towers.html| archive-date=December 28, 2013| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131228040848/http://www.panynj.gov/wtcprogress/history-twin-towers.html| url-status=dead}}</ref>  Many of his buildings feature superficial details inspired by the pointed arches of [[Gothic architecture]], and make use of extremely narrow vertical windows. This narrow-windowed style arose from his own personal [[acrophobia|fear of heights]].<ref name="GlanzLipton">{{cite book| title=City in the sky: the rise and fall of the World Trade Center |first1=Glanz| last1=James| first2=Eric| last2=Lipton| publisher=Macmillan| year=2003| isbn=978-0-8050-7428-4| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yE1Pyui4GpkC| page=109}}</ref> After partnering with [[Emery Roth|Emery Roth and Sons]] on the design of the World Trade Center, the collaboration continued with other projects including new buildings at [[Bolling Air Force Base]] in Washington, D.C.<ref name="robbins">{{cite news |title=2 Firms Are Welding Abilities to Plan World Trade Center |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1967/03/26/archives/2-firms-are-welding-abilities-to-plan-world-trade-center-two.html+Firms+Are+Welding+Abilities+to+Plan+World+Trade+Center&scp=2&st=p |last=Robbins| first=William |newspaper=The New York Times |date=March 26, 1967 |access-date=November 17, 2012}}</ref>

Yamasaki designed the [[BOK Tower]] in [[Tulsa, Oklahoma]] with a similar design to the World Trade Center. It was completed in 1976 and was the tallest building in Oklahoma at the time.<ref>{{cite news |title = A Lone Oklahoma Tower's Clear but Uncomfortable Links to 9/11 |last = Sulzberger |first = A. G. |date = August 27, 2011 |newspaper = The New York Times |url = https://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/28/us/28tulsa.html |access-date = August 17, 2023}}</ref>