What did it mean to stand so tall at the tip of Manhattan? One hundred and ten floors in two towers designed to house 50,000 humans working on this nation's and the world's financial transactions. Designed by world famous architects to symbolize (perhaps all too well) the aspirations of a country proud of its place in the panoply of nations. Assembled around the most advanced system of structural design, their skeletons were rigid enough to stand strong winds, earthquakes, and other forces of nature. These twins were covered with a thin skin of aluminum and glass designed to keep out the weather and let the toiling workers inside see the world beyond their offices.

No one in their wildest nightmares thought fanatics would purposely rend these towers asunder with planeloads of fuel and human captives sacrificed without warning. No one who designed a structure carried to the solid rock beneath Manhattan Island expected to have these ribs of steel penetrated by a savage, jet-powered missile. No one thought these soaring tubes would disgorge their contents in a holocaust of terrible ferocity.

And what did it mean on the same day, about the same time, to attack the five-sided giant called the Pentagon: This brain center of our nation's military might; a fortress circumscribed with corridors labeled A to E and occupied by 5,000 military personnel; a place with its own station on the Blue Line and the Yellow Line of the capital's metro system; a place whose hub for buses everyday connected thousands to their jobs.

How could a human skilled enough to fly a jetliner possibly think his God would reward him for sacrificing his own life by killing others who never saw him coming? How could the brain center of our Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, and National Guard be so blind and deaf as to not sense the dangerous object hurdling through the bright morning sun?

Architects did not design these frantic file cabinets of human hopes either in New York or Washington as symbols of our great republic, but they became that by their history or use. Now, as frustrated, angry, and despairing survivors, we set our flags at half-mast, we stay glued to television sets bringing us the terrible news of bodies being salvaged from the ruins of these once proud buildings, and we try to continue our daily chores with some semblance of rationality in what seems an irrational world.

Since the first plane from Boston struck the first twin tower, the world has changed in ways we cannot yet imagine. Those of us who lost relatives or friends know life will never again be able to heal the void. Those of us who are left to weep and pray cannot yet feel we deserve to be still here. And those of us who call ourselves architects know that we should never again feel challenged by designs that stretch the limits of how high we can build, or how dense we can make the workplace. We should not forget that providing a fit environment responsive to human needs and aspirations is our highest calling.

Copyright 2001 The American Institute of Architects. All rights reserved.