So, you don't like it, then??

The darkness at ground zero just got a little darker. If there is anyone still clinging to the expectation that the Freedom Tower will become a monument of the highest American ideals, the current design should finally shake them out of that delusion. Somber, oppressive and clumsily conceived, the project is a monument to a society that has turned its back on any notion of cultural openness. It is exactly the kind of nightmare that government officials repeatedly asserted would never happen here: an impregnable tower braced against the outside world.

• Nicolai Ouroussoff