Architecture It seems that the 9.11 tragedyt wasn't the first time a plane had collided with a building in New York -- in 1945 something similar happened to The Empire State Building. Architecture Week presents the precident: "It's been said that the World Trade Center Towers, tragically destroyed on September 11, 2001, were designed to withstand the impact of a speeding jet airplane. Why would architects and engineers in the 1960s take such an unlikely event into account for their design requirements? It is partly thanks to an accidental collision over 50 years ago that the new twin towers were built so tough. Engineering to incorporate lessons from the past helped the towers continue standing for an hour and more before collapsing. This saved thousands and thousands of lives in the World Trade Center disaster."

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