David Childs, the visionary architect who designed the iconic 1 World Trade Center, died on Wednesday in Pelham, New York. He was 83.
The cause of death was Lewy body dementia, his wife Annie told The New York Times. Childs was a principal at the renowned architectural firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, where he was the only partner to serve twice as chair.
Born in Princeton, New Jersey, on April 1, 1941, Childs found his calling in architecture after a lecture by architectural historian Vincent Scully while studying at Yale. He shifted from zoology to architecture, earning his master’s degree in 1967.
His most notable work, 1 World Trade Center, became a powerful symbol of resilience, rising where the Twin Towers once stood. Standing at 1,368 feet, the building was both a memorial and a testament to urban renewal. It was one of the most fraught design processes in city memory, working through five iterations before being finalized.
Throughout his career, Childs designed numerous recognizable buildings in Manhattan, including 7 World Trade Center, the Time Warner Center and 35 Hudson Yards. He was known for his versatility, rejecting a signature style in favor of designs that responded to each project’s unique context.
“I know a lot of what I’ve designed is not ‘A’ work,” Mr. Childs admitted to the Times in 2005. “But my role was different. I wanted to raise the level of everyday development as much as I could.”
Childs is survived by his wife, Annie; children Joshua, Nicholas and Jocelyn; six grandchildren; and a sister, Ellyn Allison. His son Joshua saved his life in 2016 by donating part of his liver for a critical transplant.
When speaking to The Real Deal for The Closing interview in 2011, Childs reflected on 1 World Trade Center.
“It does achieve many of the very largest goals originally set for it, which have to do with being in the New York tradition, a marker in the sky for the most important building down there, which is the memorial,” Childs said.
He added, “It was very meaningful to us, and cathartic in a way, to be working on a project that we saw destroyed.”
— Holden Walter-Warner