WINKEL supplies Bearings and Profiles for the World Trade Center Transportation Hub in New York / USA. The WINKEL Bearings are used in the movable roof of the over four billion US dollar World Trade Center in Manhattan.

The transport hub is being built on the site of the World Trade Center, which was destroyed in 2001, together with a total of four new skyscrapers. The World Trade Center Transportation Hub was designed by the Spanish star architect Santiago Calatrava and will in future connect several train and subway lines, ferries and the various buildings of the World Trade Center Complex that is currently being built. The most striking feature of the building is its futuristic roof: It consists of glazed steel ribs that rise up more than 50 meters in a V-shape - based on the wings of a lifting bird, according to Calatrava. But that's not all: To let sunlight in, the entire roof can be opened up to ten meters in the middle - the bird flaps its wings. When implementing this spectacular project, the project planners rely on Winkel's bearings and U-profiles. Installed in the roof of the Transportation Hub, these ensure robust and long-lasting guidance, which also withstands the extreme loads when opening and closing the rib construction.

A total of 224 WINKEL Bearings with  flangeplates and 445 meters U-Profile delivered the german based company to New York. So that wind and weather cannot harm the WINKEL Bearings, they are specially coated against corrosion. "We are of course proud to be able to make our contribution to such a historic and at the same time innovative project", explains Bernd Rudolph, responsible for the linear components department at WINKEL.

"The WINKEL Bearings in connection with the U-Profiles are the ideal solution for this difficult task: They are statically and dynamically extremely resilient a long service life, are easy to assemble and can be easily replaced if necessary". Rudolph smiles, " We teach the bird how to fly. "