Left, WTC; right, the "Aura."   (Photo: From left, courtesy of LMDC; courtesy of Studio Libeskind)

Ground Zero X2
Libeskind copies himself in California.
If he can’t make it here, he’ll make it . . . anyway. Marginalized at the World Trade Center, Daniel Libeskind has taken his designs and gone west. The architect’s plans for a 37-story condo tower named “Aura” in Sacramento, California, bear a remarkable resemblance to his original design for the second-tallest building at the ground-zero site. The 430-foot tower, to rise later this year, has the same geometric design at its pinnacle, with a sharply sloping downward angle on one corner. With the exception of its balconies, the tower is strikingly familiar. Libeskind says any similarity in the crowns was dictated by site-specific issues: “The genesis is that they both respond to light.” The top of the Sacramento building, he explains, pulls away from the planned adjacent skyscrapers, creating space for light. “The towers in New York had to shape the light so ground zero wouldn’t have shadows,” he says. “Architects have been using this angle forever,” Project architect Yama Karim, who worked closely with Libeskind on the Sacramento design, more readily admits the similarities. “It wasn’t intentional,” he says. “But you’re absolutely right, there is a resemblance.”
—Rob Turner