Foster and Liebeskind on shortlist to redevelop ground zero

Six of the world's top teams of architects, including Lord Foster of Thames Bank and Daniel Liebeskind, were named as the finalists to redevelop ground zero in New York yesterday.

The firms, selected from more than 400 bids, will be expected to submit their final proposals for the site of the World Trade Centre within the next two months.

The project was put out to international tender after early designs by American architects were dismissed as "mundane and boring". The finalists have been asked to come up with "bold" proposals with a series of requirements including a memorial to cover the "footprints" of the buildings that were destroyed on 11 September last year. Plans must also include offices, housing and a "powerful skyline element".

The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC), which is overseeing the redevelopment, said it expected to present a final shortlist of three designs to New Yorkers by the end of the year and the final plan would be published in the spring.

George Pataki, the Governor of New York, said: "These architects and planners represent some of the best and brightest minds in the world – and New York deserves nothing less."

The firms were chosen on the basis of submissions describing their philosophy for the project. They will each receive $40,000 (£26,000) to finance their work to meet the LMDC's demand for a "new, more flexible" vision of the 16-acre site.

The original proposals produced in June were heavily criticised by ordinary New Yorkers and designers because they all consisted of a cluster of buildings around an open space containing a memorial.

Work by Foster and Partners includes the Millennium Bridge in London, the Reichstag building in Berlin, the headquarters of the Greater London Authority and the Great Court at the British Museum. A spokesman said: "We have to try to reconstruct, heal the scars and to celebrate life in a great city, while at the same time commemorating the tragic events that unfolded there."

Mr Liebeskind, the German architect, designed the Jewish Museum in Berlin, the Imperial War Museum in Salford and a new extension for the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. He said the act of building was "optimistic" and New York deserved a thought-provoking response to 11 September. The other finalists are Richard Meier, who designed the Getty Centre in Los Angeles; United Architects, a coalition of six international firms; THINK, a group of American, British and Japanese engineers and architects; and Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, a New York firm behind the new Penn Station in the city.

The six teams comprise 27 firms, architects and artists. The final choice could consist of elements of a number of them.