The new designs of the Freedom Tower to replace the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan were announced today. It looks spectacular visually, but I am wondering if it will be useful also.

The great thing about the World Trade Center was that it was functional.  The full World Trade Center will be rebuilt in 2012 and that should make a statement to the world.

Symbolic of the Declaration of Independence, the reworked 1,776-foot (541-meter) centerpiece of the World Trade Center site unveiled by architect David Childs will have a 186-foot tall (57 meter) base sheathed with rolled, heat-treated glass over concrete.
The tower is planned as a symbol of New York’s revitalization after the September 11 attacks in 2001, which claimed more than 2,700 lives at the World Trade Center.
Rebuilding has been dogged by almost five years of acrimony over designs, security, insurance and control of the 16-acre (6.5-hectare) site at Ground Zero.
Developer Larry Silverstein, who leased the World Trade Center shortly before September 11, told reporters that if everything now goes according to plan, “By 2012 we should have a completely rebuilt World Trade Center more magnificent, more spectacular than it ever was.”
The new Freedom Tower design uses a high-tech laminated safety glass, which if attacked by a truck bomb would shatter into falling pebbles, not break into flying shards. via Yahoo! News.

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