Why did we end up with such bad designs for the WTC memorial, wonders Jerry Saltz. “How could something so important and sensitive, something so in need of an inspired touch and more time, go so wrong, so quickly? To answer this we need to look back to a month after September 11, when the air was still acrid with the smell of the smoldering wreckage, and the managerial mindset that brought us to this point surfaced. At a packed assembly of architects in Cooper Union’s Great Hall, professionals from all over the globe met and listened to dozens of their own speak about the tragedy in ways I hadn’t heard before or, thankfully, since. I love contemporary architecture, but I was appalled by the breathtaking opinion, expressed by many in attendance, that architects were the only ones who understood the site ‘in the deepest sense’.”