PHILADELPHIA -- Daniel Libeskind, professor of architecture at the University of Pennsylvania, has been chosen as a finalist for the design of the World Trade Center Project. Also serving on the Libeskind team, as the urban planner, is Gary Hack, dean of Penn's Graduate School of Fine Arts.

PHILADELPHIA -- Daniel Libeskind, professor of architecture at the University of Pennsylvania, has been chosen as a finalist for the design of the World Trade Center Project. Also serving on the Libeskind team, as the urban planner, is Gary Hack, dean of Penn's Graduate School of Fine Arts.

The Libeskind team proposed a 1,776-foot tower containing office space through the first 70 floors. "Gardens in the sky" would occupy the space above that, with a spire soaring between the two towers. The exposed foundations of the twin towers would be preserved as part of an extensive memorial. As designed, the building would be the tallest in the world, outranking Malaysia's 1,483-foot Pertonas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur.

The announcement came yesterday from the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, the state agency in charge of rebuilding on Ground Zero, that narrowed the field to the Libeskind team and THINK, led by New York architects Frederic Schwartz and Raphael Vinoly.

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