Sunset from across the Hudson: both towers and the complex lit warm, reflected in the water

twin towers 3d

sunset from across the hudson · blender render, november 2026

the world trade center as it stood in 2001, rebuilt floor by floor.

soon to be explorable in your browser

what it is

a reconstruction of the original world trade center complex: both towers, the marriott, wtc 4 to 7, the plaza and the concourse underneath. i’m building it in blender from the original architectural drawings and thousands of photos, and it runs in your browser. one day soon you’ll be able to ride the PATH train, meander through the mall, exit through the tower lobby, perhaps ride the express elevator to the observation deck, and explore the entire complex yourself.

why

some events are so large, so unprecedented, that they cast a shadow in time.

a shadow that stretches for generations, so looming it can’t be escaped. 9/11 is one of them. my fear is that it’s being forgotten: people don’t notice they’re still in that shadow, and many born after don’t realise they’ve never stood in the sun. i only know the towers from photos and film, and i’ll never get to stand there. but i think being able to walk through them, to grasp the scale, can help people realise what was lost.

the complex was a small city. a subway hub, a mall, a hotel, a restaurant on the 107th floor, tens of thousands of people at work every day. i want to put it back together as carefully as the record allows, so people who never got to visit can, and people who did can go back.

Midday in the plaza, looking up past both towers into the sun — the plaza at midday, looking up.

In the walk: looking up the tower facade — the facade, from inside the walk.

The Marriott entrance canopy — the marriott’s glass canopy.

Where the base tree columns branch into three — where the base trees branch into columns.

how it’s built

every piece starts with a source: an architectural drawing, a photograph, a tenant list, a written account, or something else. the modelling is accelerated through the use of agents, in layers, building fidelity with every pass. every change is reviewed by me, scrutinised, and compared against the sources before it merges. if no reliable reference can be found, human judgement is used to make an educated best guess. an agent will never invent something that can’t be evidenced, and everything that isn’t verified by a source is recorded, waiting for reliable reference to turn up. i’m working on a way that you can help with that.

where it’s at

the model goes up in six layers, area by area: each building, the plaza, each street, the concourse, the PATH station and the levels below finish one layer before starting the next. the first is done for both towers, wtc 4, 5 and 6, church street, the concourse and the PATH station, and every floor of wtc 4, 5 and 6 can now be reached by stair.

l1the ground and outer shellsdone in 8 of 16 areas
l2structure, stairs and liftsunder way
l3facadesunder way
l4walls, doors and ceilingsunder way
l5fittings and finishesto come
l6furniture and loose thingsto come

the walk

the walk runs the model in your browser, inside and out, at real scale. it updates automatically so you’ll see the latest changes as soon as they’re finished. it opens once layer 4 is finished.

log

10 nov

the city’s landmarks, one at a time: the world financial center and its winter garden, the woolworth building, st paul’s chapel, 90 west street, 40 wall street and 70 pine.

the winter garden, from north cove.

10 nov the city’s landmarks, one at a time: the world financial center and its winter garden, the woolworth building, st paul’s chapel, 90 west street, 40 wall street and 70 pine. the winter garden, from north cove. the woolworth building, from city hall park. the winter garden lit at night.

9 nov the walk’s controls in a windows 2000 window you can drag around, and gentler light: the haze, the clouds and the sun’s glare all reworked. the controls, open by the sphere. the sun going down over new jersey, from the 107th floor of the south tower.

9 nov the plaza’s second pass: the ideogram, the fountain’s ring, granite paving, and the benches where they stood in september 2001. the ideogram, in the court between the towers. the benches round the fountain.

9 nov the tower stairs rebuilt at the root: each landing shared by the floors it joins, and every riser as drawn. looking up stair c in the north tower, near the 100th floor.

7 nov the city of 2001 around the site: buildings for sixteen kilometres, the rivers, the streets and sidewalks nearby, and lights in the windows after dark. the site at sunset, looking south-west to the hudson. the same view after dark. from over the hudson, the world financial center in front.

6 nov the sphere, rebuilt against photos of the real thing, with its fountain running, its water heard as you get close, and lit from below at night. the sphere in the evening, looking west across the plaza. lit from below after dark. the fountain from the south-west.

6 nov the marriott bends in the middle, and its plans now turn at the right point: the shorter wing moved about 70 cm, closer to where the 2001 aerial photos put it. the marriott from the air, between west street and the south tower. a guest floor’s plan laid over the model, to check the fit.

5 nov the concourse’s first layer is done, and nine escalators now run down from PATH Square toward the station. the PATH Square escalators, looking down from the concourse.

5 nov wtc 4, 5 and 6 can be climbed by stair, from the street to the roof. a wtc 5 stair, from the eighth floor to the roof. a wtc 6 stair in section, ground floor to roof.

4 nov plaza muzak: the real tobin plaza tracks, playing from speakers under the overhangs of wtc 4 and 5. the arcade under wtc 4, where the speakers hang. a speaker between the arches.

4 nov the first stairs inside the towers. looking up a north tower stairwell, near the 100th floor. the same stair in section, floor to floor.

3 nov volumetric clouds over the walk. sunset clouds over the plaza. the complex from above at sunset. dusk from the street.

30 oct sunlight and sky in the walk. the plaza from the west in afternoon sun. shadows across the plaza.

22 oct the walk: the whole complex in your browser, in first person. it made mistakes really easy to spot, and every note i took in it went back into the model. looking up the facade, in the walk. the plaza from above, in the walk.

10 oct the hotel’s glass entrance canopy. the canopy from the north, west street running south past it. under the glass, at the hotel’s west street doors. the hotel from west street, the canopy at its foot.

28 sep the marriott, built from its own plans, and the tower facade where the base trees branch into the columns above. the marriott from the south-west. where the base trees branch into three.

23 sep structure from the original drawings: core columns, the perimeter “trees” at the base and the floor framing. a cut-away of the north tower base.

20 sep the first renders from street level, looking up between the towers from the plaza. looking straight up between the towers. the towers behind a low building.

19 sep one block, sized from published dimensions. by the evening the rest of the site had followed as massing. that evening: the whole site in massing. the first render: one grey block.

the world trade center as it stood in 2001, rebuilt floor by floor.

what it is

why

how it’s built

where it’s at

the walk

log ↓

log