06-10 Denver Art Museum (1), originally uploaded by MCPastur

New York Magazine profiles architect Daniel Libeskind in The Liberation of Daniel Libeskind:

You remember Daniel Libeskind: the architect with the perpetual smile who wooed New York with images of a crystalline city rising from the rubble of ground zero. He tossed metaphorical titles like confetti—Wedge of Light, Freedom Tower, Memory Foundations, Park of Heroes. He spoke with such articulate sincerity that he seemed almost able to conjure architecture into existence by sheer force of enthusiasm. He kept grinning as politicians and rivals and real-estate men whittled away at his plan. Eventually, you recall, he was pushed off the Freedom Tower’s design team. You could be excused for believing that he had slunk back to Europe to design an avant-garde gallery or two.
But Libeskind, who graduated from the Bronx High School of Science and the Cooper Union before migrating to Michigan, Italy, and Germany, has become a New Yorker again. Every morning, he sits in the comfortably austere living room of his Tribeca apartment, devoting a ritual hour to listening to classical music. After breakfast, he walks with his wife, Nina, to his studio on Rector Street, where, with undimmed smile and untempered zeal, he presides over a minor architectural empire.

Compare this article, which alludes to Libeskind’s uncanny optimism in the face of disappointment, with NY Mag’s opus regarding the Ground Zero Memorial entitled, The Breaking of Michael Arad.
Libeskind is perhaps the only person or entity which will escape the lunacy and ignobility which the rebuilding process at World Trade has descended. Which is quite the turnaround from just a few years ago when his master plan looked like it would crumble under the weight of politics and other architect’s influence.