A year after the World Trade Center towers were attacked, The New York Times Magazine invited some of the world’s greatest architects to reimagine the future of Lower Manhattan, hoping to invigorate public discussion and focus attention on the planning process. The magazine devoted an entire issue to their ideas, presenting their architectural visions and graphically explaining their complex planning proposals.

The magazine used a series of satellite photographs, axonometric drawings, maps and architectural scale models to set up a clear guide to the entire project, which swiftly grew to encompass all of Lower Manhattan. We worked directly with most of the architects, who then produced drawings to our specifications and provided us with guidelines for the explanatory planning grids. The result was a celebration of the power of architecture to inspire, dazzle and spur furious debate.