It’s been over two decades since the September 11 attacks and a little over 10 years since the World Trade Center, its replacement, officially opened. But that’s not good enough for some people. Particularly, one rich guy who wants to bring back the Twin Towers… but put them in Chicago… and then make them a data center.
Take some deep breaths. It’s a lot to take in, I know.
The plan, called the “World Tech Center,” comes from Raphael Chryslar, a U.K.-based aerospace engineer who was a baby when the original towers fell. Still, over the years, he’s built up something of a mythology around the towers, so much so that he wants to see them built right back up just as they were, with a few key differences, as first reported by the fine folks at Futurism.
This Engineer’s Plan to Rebuild the Twin Towers Involves Lasers. Seriously.
Move them from New York to Chicago, and instead of housing offices, the towers would now serve as massive data centers and STEM labs spread across a 35-acre, nine-building campus.
Chrysler wants to bring back the twin towers, but as glimmering tech monoliths with ultra-reinforced concrete cores, fireproof structural systems, and water-filled tuned mass dampers designed to steady the buildings against extreme forces.
Chrysler figures that rebuilding the Twin Towers will likely inspire some jokester terrorists to try to do another 9/11 on them, so in addition to high-tech evacuation routes and a variety of emergency measures, Chrysler also wants to install an aerial threat detection system with anti-aircraft surface-to-air missiles or a multi-megawatt laser defense system.
Good lord.
Chrysler views it as both a tribute to the original towers and as a way to restore a symbol of resilience that the United States lost in September 2001. As for how realistic any of this is, that’s up for debate. The proposal exists mostly as concept art and ambition, but Chrysler told Futurism that he is currently gathering community feedback on his idea.
Chrysler’s dream is currently quite far-off in becoming a reality, but that hasn’t stopped Chrysler from penciling in a tentative target completion date of 2050.
The post This Engineer Wants to Rebuild the Twin Towers, But With Lasers This Time appeared first on VICE.
