November 11, 2004

	Click photos for a closer look
	Comparisons of the Freedom Tower and Shine's project. Images Courtesy Darby & Darby

Brookline, Massachussetts-based architect Thomas Shine has pitted himself as an architectural David vs. Goliath in a battle with David Childs and SOM over the design of the World Trade Center Freedom Tower.

Shine, 40, claims in a lawsuit filed on Nov. 8 in U.S. District Court in New York that Childs copied a project Shine had developed while he was a Master's student at Yale University School of Architecture. Shine claims to have presented the project to Childs in the fall of 1999.

The project, named “Olympic Tower,” is a twisting tower with a symmetrical diagonal column grid, expressed on the exterior of the building, following the twisting surface created by the floor plates’ geometry. Shine copyrighted the idea last spring, and is suing for copyright infringement under the U.S. Copyright Act.

“From the first time I saw the design of the Freedom Tower,” which also features twisting surfaces, a diagonal exterior grid and other similarities, “I was very surprised at how close it was to mine,” says Shine.

Shine, who says he has always been fascinated by the twisting forms in ceramics, says he came up with the idea while attending a studio course with architect Cesar Pelli. Childs was one of the jurors who reviewed the final proposals. As part of the lawsuit, Shine, now a partner at his own firm, Choi + Shine, which he runs with his wife, is presenting his original drawings and models next to SOM’s. He admits having reservations about the suit.

“No one undertakes suing a multi-national corporation lightly, and you can’t help but feel vulnerable,” notes Shine, who was born in England but is now a U.S. citizen. “But it’s not easy for me to just walk away and let it go.” He mentions that he and his lawyer tried several times to settle the issue with SOM outside of court, but that that the firm was unreceptive.

His lawyer, Andrew Baum, of New York firm Darby & Darby, stresses that the lawsuit is not intended to affect the building process at Ground Zero. “We’re not trying to interfere with the construction of this building, and we’re not trying to change the plans. We’re looking for fair recognition of Thomas’s contribution and fair compensation for his original work,” he says.

SOM quickly responded to the suit’s filing with a statement, claiming, among other things, that the components of the Freedom Tower had been in development by the firm long before Shine's project: “The suit that Thomas Shine filed against SOM for copyright infringement is specious. While Mr. Shine's building and Freedom Tower share some common design elements, most of these elements have been industry standards for decades. The diagrid structural system combined with shaped geometry, forexample, was first used by SOM in Chicago's John Hancock Center in 1970 and has been widely used since. This is a high-profile project and a number of people have made claims that they were the inventors of various parts of Freedom Tower's design. However,SOM and its team of engineers, has combined these elements in a unique way that reflects the special nature of the building's site and its importance.”

Sam Lubell