DANIEL LIBESKIND´s inclusion on the short list of architects who have been asked to propose designs for rebuilding the World Trade Center site and the region around it represents for him a great leap forward. His skewed, dismembered WTC design has been vehemently criticized for its intentional shock effect, but it is this very quality that endears it to the avant-garde. We wish to find a reasonable basis for analysis that bypasses the usual terms of debate on architectural deconstruction. That so far only generates polemics without hope of sensible resolution. Towards this end, it is necessary to dig deeper than superficial style.