Seems there's been a wee mishap at Libeskind & Libeskind. While we liked the hagiography-cum-cocksuck (masquerading as a Time article) that was sent out this afternoon by Danny's intra-office flacks (and immediately forwarded to us by like a million people), we loved the fact that, like Mark Strauss and Max Protetch before, the 394 recipients' email addresses were all right there in the "cc" line. So, while Nina busies herself firing one unfortunate "AM" in her employ, scan the list after the jump. We've already found a few treasures: all the current and former powerplayers downtown (as if they care), Frank Gehry (as if he needs his nose rubbed in Danny's good press), and poor sainted Sarah Crichton. Did she not already pay her dues?

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There's so much chatter today about new something or others planned for Ground Zero. Yes, it is passing strange that Lord Foster's design should so closely mimic the idiot blanks of Danny's master plan and not his own spire circa 2003. Yes, Richard Rogers' busybee trusselated mass should be aborted post haste. Sure, Fumihiko Maki's tower is a straight rip of that triangular thing at 53rd and Lex that is already a sad homage to its noble Midtown neighbor, Citicorp. But the real action, as ever, is elsewhere. Designer Kevin Wallace has seen the future, above, and, pursuant to the unimpeachable logic below, it is his.

As the plans for Ground Zero have unraveled over the past five years and the site has become universally regarded as a moral, economic, and artistic failure, the ultimate fate of the site still remains uncertain on this fifth anniversary of September 11th. Considering that a new governor will be elected in two months and the current financing scheme is in serious question, a bold new vision for the City is not only a desirable prospect, but it is a highly plausible one given the merits of this fresh and elegant new vision.

Amazed New Yorkers may behold the merits themselves when the design goes on view at Gallerie Icosahedron, 27 North (sic) Moore Street, on September 9.

· Friday AM Linkage: Freedom Tower Friends Edition [Curbed]

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Our boy Mikey's got a tough job. Channeling the grief of thousands. Giving architecture meaning. Building something at Ground Zero. Which is why we were thrilled—but hardly surprised—to discover the latest kicker to his memorial wading pools.

The 9/11 memorial at Ground Zero - the two square pools in the footprints of the Twin Towers - will produce a rising mist when conditions are right, especially cool mornings, memorial architect Michael Arad said at a Whitney Museum reception the other night. The party was hosted by Leonard Lauder and Howard Rubenstein to show off the new exhibition, "Full House: Views of the Whitney Collection At 75." Arad told The Post's Lois Weiss that his design is still evolving.

· Misty Mourning [New York Post]

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An image of future Freedom Tower leasing sublime from Reader FT opens and closes the festivities on this too-fine-for-blogging (read: last night was super fun!) Friday afternoon. A la prochaine.

· Rejoice! Freedom Tower 3.1 Revealed [The Gutter]

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Please, please, please, O generous gods and godlings, ineffable deitudes from whom all blessings everlastingly flow: let just this one thing be true. Let it be real. Let it get built and used and visited and filmed. Let it become enshrined in monographs. Let it be learned and taught. Let it become the shining center of our common architectural memory. Forever. Breaking! Heidi Fleiss is building America's first legal all-male brothel in Nevada. And she says she's hired Daniel Libeskind:

Her plans now include everything from a spa to peepshow rooms. To design those rooms, she told me, she had hired World Trade Center architect Daniel Libeskind, and they were in “preliminary phases.”

Savor the love for a moment before you read on to the big "but"...

Whatever those phases are, when I reached Libeskind’s office, no one there had any idea what I was talking about, nor, they said, had they been in contact with Fleiss.

No matter what Nina says, we're not giving up hope. Because it feels so right.

· The Heidi Chronicles [LA Weekly]

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At last year's convention he won a car. This year, in Los Angeles, his peers and confréres at the AIA have bucked up Michael Arad's spirits by giving him their Young Architects Award. (Note the lackluster company and the outdated memorial description.) The photo, with sundry AIANYC brass, says it all: Sure, everything is falling apart downtown and he's getting hella reamed by, well, everyone. But that doesn't matter now. He's got a plaque!

· Young Architects Honored—They Are All Winners! [AIA]

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Well, we're all in a full-on flivver over here at Gutter HQ. Some would like to declare today's David Childs-wrought changes as evidence of the dawn of Freedom Tower 4.0, heralded here just two weeks ago, but a consensus is emerging that to swap glass for metal on the base does not a new iteration make. So join us in hailing Freedom Tower 3.1. And, again, David Dunlap, who sneaked the following realpolitik observation past the Times' style desk:

If all goes according to plan — almost nothing has at ground zero — completion of the $2 billion, 2.6 million-square-foot Freedom Tower is expected in 2011.

Speaking of, has Childs slapped his lips on Danny's Blarney Stone?

Mr. Childs now proposes to cover the base in panels of laminated glass with a saw-tooth face made of prisms in a vertical array. "You know this from high-school physics class," Mr. Childs said. "The sun hits the prism and breaks into color."

Shades of the Wedge of Night? We had our doubts—until Port Authority honcho Ken Ringler put them to rest:

"I think David's artistic skills should alleviate many of those fears."

Also revealed, after the jump: a plaza with many steps, some hot lobby shots, and—gasp!—the final ultra-jiggy site plan for Ground Zero?????

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The WTC Memorial is all fucked up. And the Memorial Foundation is adrift. But now they've got podcasts!

In anticipation of the 5th anniversary of 9/11, the WTC Memorial Foundation today launched a podcast series that will feature interviews with creators of the planned Memorial Museum at Ground Zero, as well as first-hand accounts from those affected by the events of September 11, 2001.

Fifth anniversary. Coming soon. Nothing but a hole. And they're owning it.

· Build the Memorial Podcasts [WTCMF]

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Having come late to the Ground Zero game, perhaps he should be forgiven. Perhaps. But that would be no fun. In the Times today, Nicolai O. has outdone himself, running together an amazing string of credulous confusions and half-thoughts. Frankly, there's more there than we can stomach to critique this fine, fine day. So let's just take one typically sloppy graf:

It is the mayor and the governor who should be credited with the latest design, not the bruised architect. Now that his design has been eviscerated, Mr. Arad could consider stepping aside, rather than twist in the wind. Since the experience of the pools will be two-dimensional, perhaps the memorial should be turned over to an artist rather than an architect.

Ill-informed: As an amazing 95% of his fellow New Yorkers have intuited, the mayor is an innocent here. But the governor and his henchmen not only should have been but actually were credited (among those who follow the story closely, including many of Nic's able colleagues) with the final contours of the Arad design—not only in the revised form that survived until this week, but as it was first presented in late 2003.

Ill-mannered: Arad got snookered (again), so he should storm off in a huff (again!)? Is that what real artists do? Real artists like Peter Eisenman, whose Shoahpalooza in Berlin gets BJ #108 from Nicolai elsewhere in the article? Not if they want to work in this town.

Ill-conceived: The experience of the pools is now only 2D? Nope. So they should really be designed by an artist. Huh?!?

You'll have to discover for yourself the other hidden treasures. Or skip it and read David Dunlap's thoughtful update. Then join us in casting your vote for the Draft Dunlap as Architecture Critic campaign below....

· Ground Zero Memorial, Revised But Not Improved [NYT]
· The Effect of Moving 9/11 Names to Street Level [NYT]

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Stretch your minds back to the latter half of 2005, Dear Readers, and remember Daniel Libeskind's show at the always charming Max Protetch's eponymous gallery. And while we're sure you remember, word for word, verbatim for verbatim, we'll refresh your memories:

In his zeal to project his relevance at Ground Zero, did Daniel Libeskind go so far as to reimagine the timeline of the development and attempt to freeze same in a sketchy "process" sketch?

The Californians, of course. From last week's Palm Springs' The Desert Sun:

In 2003, David Libeskind, a visionary and expressive architect, was selected as the official master planner of Ground Zero, the 16-acre site of the World Trade Center.

His winning proposal called for a single 1,776-foot glass tower recalling Lady Liberty's extended hand reaching skyward.

This scroll contains several schematics for the complex site. Incorporating a memorial, cultural buildings, the Freedom Tower and other office towers and public spaces, Libeskind sought to incorporate a tribute to the altruism and courage of the fallen and provide an expression of freedom and optimism for the future.

Due to a combination of political and economic forces, much of his original concept has been altered. His original notions can be seen in this piece, "World Trade Center Scroll."

· World Trade Center Scroll [Desert Sun]
· Danny Pushing WTC Fantasies to the Max [The Gutter]

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