In a strange way, architecture is really an unfinished thing, because even though the building is finished, it takes on a new life. It becomes part of a new dynamic: how people will occupy it, use it, think about it.

To provide meaningful architecture is not to parody history, but to articulate it.

In a strange way, architecture is really an unfinished thing, because even though the building is finished, it takes on a new life. It becomes part of a new dynamic: how people will occupy it, use it, think about it.

You cannot suddenly make Lower Manhattan into a sad place because we saw such a dramatic loss of life. You have to balance the memory, which is so important, and use it as a kind of Archimedean Point to create a lively, incredibly interesting, and culturally significant piece of a city and neighborhood.

Only through acknowledgment of the erasure and void of Jewish life can the history of Berlin and Europe have a human future.

And then, build a bustling wonderful city of the 21st century, with a restoration of a spectacular skyline, which Manhattan, of course, needs. So, that is really the design as a whole.

Architecture is not just for the moment, it is not just for the next fashion magazine.