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Santiago Calatrava's Flying Bird Takes Shape at the WTC

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The new World Trade Center transportation hub has come under fire for a lot of things—mostly for being billions of dollars over budget and years past the original opening date—but one thing is for sure: the development, with its exposed rib cage structure, makes for some really fun construction watching. Architect Santiago Calatrava wooed the city 10 years ago when he proposed this "bird in flight" design, but value engineering chipped away much of the finesse and left us with a something less like a graceful bird, and more like a chunky stegosaurus. Even still, now that it's actually rising on the site, it certainly inspires a bit of awe.

The first platform of the new station opened a few weeks ago, and it, too, came under criticism for being "conspicuously unfinished" and having "cheap"-looking design (even though the whole thing cost $4 billion, double the original estimated cost). The entire hub should be complete sometime next year, but we're not holding our breath.
· All WTC Transportation Hub coverage [Curbed]
· WTC Progress [Facebook]