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Like an orthopedic surgeon revered by the elderly, Robert Silman has reset the bones of some great old buildings: Carnegie Hall, Ellis Island, Radio City Music Hall, Wingspread, and Fallingwater. A structural engineer who studied architecture for one year and later worked for Ove Arup in London, Silman opened his own office in New York in 1966 just as the preservation movement was emerging as a force on the urban landscape. Although his firm designs new structures (mostly for institutional clients such as schools, hospitals, and churches), it has worked on more than 250 designated landmarks, devising ways of repairing them without altering their essential character.
Q: Before we talk about preservation, tell me briefly about your work at the World Trade Center site. We are just one part of a group effort organized by the Structural Engineers Association of New York, in which 30 firms...