Architecture critic urges patience with WTC. (Transcripts).

Is the deliberately slow pace with which the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation approaches it's goal a liability? Not according to Paul Goldberger, the renowned New Yorker architecture critic, who gave an inspiring tribute to patience at the Regional Plan Association's conference on Downtown New York.

Appealing to an audience of city planners, government officials, and victim's families, Goldberger urged for prudence and common sense in choosing a fitting way to revitalize Lower Manhattan.

"The redevelopment process for Downtown is not the sort of process where the faster we do it, the better it will be," he said. "The events of Sept. 11 have a magnitude that we cannot grasp in just nine months. And decisions made in shock are not the best ones. Larry Silverstein's idea to build four 50-story towers at the site was wrong, however well-intentioned. The cries to rebuild the towers were even more wrong. And the opposite, the plan to build nothing at the site, is also short sighted. It looks only backwards and will leave us with a void in the center of the city."

Instead, Goldberger advised those who. participate in the planning process to take their time and consider all of the factors involved in redevelopment, such as the economic health of the city and the impact on New York's skyline. He suggested that the emphasis should be on developing a project that would speak not only to the people who experienced the World Trade Center attack, but to the future generations of New Yorkers.

"There will be a time when we are no longer shocked at the void in the skyline, when we expect to see just a construction site where the Twin Towers once stood," he said.

"That will be a time to rebuild. We have no roadmap to guide us because nothing like this ever happened. But I hope that we will build ambitiously and with conviction."

In general, the speaker approved the Regional Plan Association's preliminary proposal to create a 24-hour, mixed-use community at the site. But he urged against transforming the area into just another successful real estate venture.

"I understand people's desire to fill the neighborhood with life again," he said. "But building another Battery Park City will not express the enormity, the power, and the depth of what happened on Sept. 11. Whatever we build at the site will have to show some scars. To make the World Trade Center site too much like other places is to deny the reality of history."

As an alternative, Goldberger offered his own vision of what should be done at the 16-acre site. In order to restore the city's skyline, while at the same time addressing safety concerns, New York should build a sort of 21st century "Eiffel" tower -- a tall structure that would serve only as an observation deck or a broadcast point and have no functional use.

"The destruction of the skyline was a devastating thing," Goldberger noted. "Something was taken away from New York that was beloved by many people. We have a boxy blur, instead of a magnificent skyline right now. We need to restore it."

He envisions a structure that "would not have the complex functional demands of a skyscraper, but would repair the skyline. The tower itself could also serve as a memorial. Then, we will have been worthy of the challenge that lies before us -- to make New York something better than it was before."

In conclusion, Goldberger praised the Regional Plan Association's efforts to put together a comprehensive plan for Downtown Manhattan, but warned against the temptation to make the planning process an end in itself.

"What we have to worry about right now is not indifference, but too much consensus," he said. "Consensus is not a program, a process, or a design. We have to listen, but we also have to do something about it."

The conference took place on Apr. 26.