> This structure has multiple, in many ways contradictory functional requirements, needing to simultaneously be a supertall office building, monument, and fortress.

I think the article deliberately questioned a lot of those requirements, to its credit:

> There had been talk after Sept. 11 about the World Trade Center development’s including housing, culture and retail, capitalizing on urban trends and the growing desire for a truer neighborhood, at a human scale, where the windswept plaza at the foot of the twin towers had been.

> But the idea was brushed aside by the political ambitions of former Gov. George E. Pataki of New York, a Republican, and the commercial interests of Larry Silverstein, the developer with a controlling stake at the site, among other forces pressing for a mid-20th-century complex of glass towers surrounding a plaza. Stripped of prospective cultural institutions, as well as of street life and housing, the plan soon turned into something akin to an old-school office park, destined to die at night — the last thing a young generation of New Yorkers wanted. In retrospect, had 1 World Trade been built last, after the site was coaxed back to life (and yes, many added years later), a very different project might have evolved.

So you and the author of the article are talking past each other: you're saying the building is a fine, elegant solution that fulfills the requirements stated, and the author is saying it's an ill-suited building because the initial requirements were bad in the first place.