WTC: Barren Memorial

Inga Saffron writes that the World Trade Center memorial is a major misstep. “Launched a bare two years after terrorists pulverized the twin towers – which were themselves a compendium of dehumanizing architectural features – the competition demanded that architects distill meaning from that historic event while the rest of us are still reeling. The result is a design so generic and so sanitized that it drains the site of its sound and fury, signifying nothing.”