A Georgia-based architect says the prominent architectural firm behind One World Trade Center ripped off a design he created as a graduate student in 1999.
Jeehoon Park sued architectural firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill in Manhattan federal court Wednesday for unspecified damages, saying the firm has unfairly taken credit for the lower Manhattan tower, the tallest in the Western Hemisphere, despite it’s “striking similarity” to a multi-sided glass structure he created while studying at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago.
Park, who is now president at Qube Architecture LLC in Suwanee, Ga., said Skidmore, Owings & Merrill had access to his graduate thesis design through multiple channels, including his former graduate school advisor, who is now works with SOM.
Park, who moved to the US from Korea in 1996, said SOM may have also seen and then stolen his design after it appeared in 2006 film “The Lake House,” starring Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reaves. One of the scenes from that movie featuring his design had been filmed “in the main lobby of the building where SOM’s Chicago office was located,” the lawsuit said. Architect claims firm stole One World Trade Center design | New York Post