April 1, 2004

ARCHITECTURAL RECORD: Do you think your master plan for the World Trade Center still exists?

Daniel Libeskind: I think all of it is quite literally around. The Freedom Tower reaches to 1,776 feet. It has a garden. It is shaped to be part of an ascending spiral of skyscrapers. It fits into the master plan. The same is true for the memorial: The site goes 35 feet below street level; it has the slurry wall as an important design element; it has a waterfall and possesses space for cultural buildings.

Although it’s not literally what was in my original images, it shows a robustness and a new kind of idea about a master plan. The master plan is not a bunch of lines on paper, it’s about an idea. That’s what has created the momentum and the consensus to let it be realized, rather than wind up in an archive. It’s an evolution, not a compromise. It’s the reverse of Potsdamer Platz in Berlin, which was just a bunch of architects following exactly what was on paper. This was a creative balance between the strength of ideas and a balance with individual pieces.

AR: Did you ever expect your drawings of the World Trade Center to be realized?

DL: Those were just the images, not the ideas. The superficial has changed, not the principles. There are some differences, but that’s fine—that’s the nature of the city. There were many opinions about it. I, in good conscience, thought I provided the maximum palate for the designers. You can say that’s how a master plan becomes a reality. The boldness of it has to give way to all sorts of subtleties. This is the art of making a living master plan, rather than making an 18th-century plan that is obediently followed. We’re living in a market economy. A plan that works is one that can unite all of those forces.

A proscribed plan would have only been possible if I were hired as the sole architect. We’re not living in Haussmann’s Paris. We have a pluralist society.

AR: Are you upset about how your collaboration with (Freedom Tower architect) David Childs worked out?

DL: I’m not about to go into partnership with David Childs. But I did the best I could under the circumstances, which, given what happened, devolved to the point that I had to make sure that SOM would make a tower related to Ground Zero.

AR: Is the Freedom Tower design as inspirational as you had hoped?

DL: I’m not the architect. My role is very clear: To make sure the tower fits into the plan. I’m sorry the collaboration didn’t go further than that. It wasn’t a team working on all aspects. It was really tough going. It wasn’t creativity at its highest level—it was about other things. At some point, I gave up the idea of the architecture of the tower. My role was instead to make sure that whatever was designed was responsible to the concept of spatial relations, the right relationship to the Statue of Liberty, to the street grid, the roofscape, and the concept of spiraling towers. It’s not an ego statement or a developer’s idea of a tower. It should stand as an emblem.

AR: Did you expect so much struggle with your master plan?

DL: I’m not naive. I didn’t think this was going to be easy. Why should it be easy? It’s a complex process with many pressures and tensions, and you have to be part of it. There’s something exhilarating about democracy; it has to be enjoyed and respected. I’m truly inspired by how the process has taken shape over such a short time. To do something like this in the public limelight, yet move forward so efficiently, is a testament to America.

Sam Lubell