CityGuy

Ground Zero is being rebuilt with structures that dont talk to each other or the sacred site, but pay homage to the BOTTOM line.
It would be a stretch to call the three enormous towers proposed for the World Trade Center site charming, but many in New Yorks development community will undoubtedly feel satisfied that the highest aspirations of art and profit have been met by these "signature" buildings by three internationally famous architects, Norman Foster and Richard Rogers of London and Fumihiko Maki of Tokyo. The designs were released for the fifth anniversary of 9/11 by the Port Authority, which owns the land, and developer Larry Silverstein, who holds the leases for the World Trade Center towers and is committed to rebuilding.
Mr. Maki has a refinement and urbanity that suggests the possibility of compatibility rather then competition. This is not the place for dramatic chaos of unrelated development that defines so much of New York City; Ground Zero begs for something more. The original concept of spiraling, crystal-line towers was stunning and magical. It identified the site and made a unified impact on the skyline. There is no meaning or magic left in the token rise in building heights to a much compromised Freedom Tower. Call it irony or call it destiny, the architecture once rejected as a costly 'frill' is now embraced for its dollar value.
The most obvious comment to be made about these buildings is that whatever the pious rhetoric, their proximity to sacred ground, and the care to which the reality is skirted, they are machines for making money, just as the Twin Towers were, with only some rearrangement of the square footage. Wringing every possible dollar from a piece of property is a traditional New York practice celebrated in the oft-repeated real estate mantra, offered with a straight face and impressive hubris, as the highest and best use of the land. Say it often enough and no one will question the absence of any need or purpose other than profit in the calculations. This is a sick thought but reality is always truth.