The Freedom Tower is undeniably innovative and all that, but it looks far too much like the kind of building that wins modern design contests. There’s too much architecture and not enough building. I don’t understand the skeleton at the top. That part of the design comes off as a vain attempt to make a smaller building fill the shoes of a larger one. It strikes me as unlike New York to punt in that fashion: especially with regard to tall buildings.

More important than the design, the Twin Towers revisited design also has a powerful emotional factor in its favour. I don’t think that selling real estate, including really big real estate, is different from anything else people pay money for: the story has to be good. And, rebuilding the Twin Towers a wee bit taller and a wee bit better is a good story. It blasts Big Apple attitude in all directions, which is good given that it’s about New York.