Two Official Architectural Drawings of the Plans for the Twin Towers - The World Trade Center. New York, 1967

Two Official Architectural Drawings of the Plans for the Twin Towers - The World Trade Center. New York, 1967

Two original official architectural drawings of the plans for the Twin Towers - The World Trade Center in New York, 1967.

* Plan no. 171 of the 109th floor plan from 31/7/1967. Black ink. 63x46 cm. Printed drawing.

* Plan no. 135 of the 77th floor plan from 31/7/1967. Blue ink. 63x46 cm. Printed drawing.

There is a legend on the upper right, and the names of the companies that participated in the project on the lower left: Minoru Yamasaki & Associates, Emery Roth & Sons, Jaros Baum & Bolles, Helle & Jackson. Both drawings have certificates of authenticity attached.

There are total of 273 known drawings of the Twin Towers which served the architects during the various stages of construction at the end of the 1960s and beginning of the 1970s. Most of the drawings were archived by the office as the buildings were completed. It is known that there were additional copies of these drawings which were stored in the buildings' basements, but they were completely destroyed during the September 11th attacks. The offices of Yamasaki, who planned the buildings, testify that the final plans in their possession were discarded in 2003. The only drawings left were archived in Michigan after the Yamasaki company closed its offices in 2010, and in fact, these are the only original plans known remaining. In recent years, it was publicized that one of the drawings was found in Venezuela, but exactly where is not clear.

The source of the drawings before us is a man who received the plans directly from the Yamasaki offices - who had considered holding on to them an unnecessary burden and threw a huge archive of historical documents dealing with the original plans of the buildings into the garbage. After a while, the company became aware of the magnitude of their mistake in that they did not attach sufficient importance to the documents, and a legal battle was fought with the present owner over the course of years. The court has finally authorized the present holder as sole and undisputed owner of the collection. This is the only collection of its kind left in the world, and two of its drawings are offered for sale here, with a certificate of authenticity for each drawing.

The Twin Towers were planned by the American architect Minoru Yamasaki who wanted to express a Gothic tribute in their design. The shape of the buildings was designated to recall two bell towers of a cathedral, as well as the bold vertical lines and the top of the structure being reminiscent of a cathedral's arches. The two skyscrapers, comprising 110 stories, rose up 417 meters (North Tower) and 415 meters (South Tower). "Tower no. 1," with construction ending in 1972, was, in its time, the tallest tower in the world. Each one of the pair of buildings was built on an area of 4000 square meters and each building had a total of 350,000 square meters built, out of over a million square meters in the entire World Trade Center. The buildings were among the most prominent symbols of New York City and also represented the economic strength of the United States as a whole. Many multi-national companies were housed in the towers.

In the well-known suicide attacks on September 11th 2001, the two buildings collapsed after a pair of airplanes piloted by Islamic terrorists from Al- Qaida, headed by Osama bin Laden, crashed into the buildings. Although the skeletons of the buildings were initially planned to withstand any kind of attack, including aircraft, the planners did not consider aircraft loaded with thousands of tons of fuel, which eventually caused the conflagration that melted the steel skeleton of the building - causing the collapse of both buildings within two hours. The World Trade Center tragedy, which took 2977 lives, is considered the largest attack which has happened on American soil since the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in 1941, and is also considered the largest and most devastating terrorist attack in history.

In 2014, the new World Trade Center, rising up 541.3 meters, was inaugurated in Manhattan. It is the tallest building in New York in place of the Empire State Building, and the tallest in the United States in place of the Sears Tower.

With the exception of a slight tear in drawing number 171 on the upper right, without damage to text, the condition of both drawings is very fine.