2001, New York

The last lecture of the course was about the history of skyscrapers in the US and the terrorist attack in New York. New York City was planned with a grid since 1807. With time passing, the city has developed and it has become one of the most important and crowded cities in the world. So, the rush to build more and more buildings has started with the increasing population. The solution was found with the invention of the elevator; skyscrapers.
With this new building type, the rules for that type have come too. The Zoning Resolution in 1916 was given some rules for the design of the skyscrapers. Also, this building type brought the race to build the highest building in the world. The Empire State building was the highest one for long years until 1974, the construction of the World Trade Center. But today, Burj Khalifa is the highest building.

Another building that has joined the race was the Twin Towers. It was again very high, but the construction of it was very controversial. The foundation of the building was wet soil, so it was dangerous. People living there were not supportive of its construction.
And with those extremely high buildings, the fear of falling came too. They were too high, and people were afraid of their falling. This fear was the subject of lots of movies, comics and etc. But one day, this fear has come true. On 09.11.2001, the Twin Towers were attacked by terrorists. Two planes crashed into the buildings and 3000 people died. The buildings have collapsed after the crash. This was a huge disaster, people were shocked. Now, two memorial pools are built on the footprints of the towers. This disaster is different from the others because this is all man-made. The destroyed building is man-made and also the destroying force is man-made. I think this is worse than any other natural disaster because this is human destroying humans.