The Skyscraper Museum collaborated with the Port Authority, the design firm Pentagram, and the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC) to provide the history panels for the Viewing Wall. Special alcoves of recessed bays contain panels with all the names of the victims of September 11, 2001. The simple design of the wall, a screen-like grid of galvanized steel, allowed visitors to see into the Trade Center site and also carried a series of large fiberglass panels that feature information on the buildings and rebuilding, as well as history panels. On September 10, 2002, the first phase of the Viewing Wall at Ground Zero was inaugurated by Governor George Pataki and other dignitaries at ceremonies commemorating the anniversary of 9/11.

It will hold the record for at least five years- the typical time it takes to construct a supertall. The world’s tallest building, Burj Khalifa, rises 828 meters/ 2,717 feet above the sands of Dubai. Worldwide, 48 projects measure up, including six towers of 600 meters or taller, six of 500+ meters, and twenty-four exceeding 400 meters.

To distinguish the rarified air of the super- from the merely very tall, the Museum made the benchmark 380 meters/ 1,250 feet-the height of the Empire State Building-rather than the common standard of 300 meters. This recent generation of giants, generally 100 stories or higher, represents a new paradigm of slender mixed-use towers that explore innovative approaches in engineering, curtain-wall and construction technologies, energy efficiency and sustainability, and concepts of vertical communities. SUPERTALL! is an international survey of superlative towers featuring projects that have been completed since 2001, are under construction, or are expected to top out by 2016. Frank Lloyd Wright: The Vertical Dimension.The Original Yamasaki World Trade Center.Giants: Twin Towers and the Twentieth Century.Urban Fabric: Building New York’s Garment District.Index of Past Exhibitions, Listed Chronologically

Skyscraper drawing