Architect Daniel Libeskind, the original visionary behind the 1,766-foot Freedom Tower and the World Trade Center redevelopment, remembers looking up from the empty hole left by the two destroyed towers.

“My world changed,” he said Wednesday night at the Kansas Union.

He took note of a wall, partially underground, that was still holding at the site. He wanted to preserve that and the empty space to honor those who died there.

Then he built a plan for a new World Trade Center site that faced much scrutiny after it was selected and even today as planning for redevelopment continues.

At Kansas University, Libeskind presented his designs to a capacity audience in the 500-seat Woodruff Auditorium. About 200 more people watched his speech on television from the union’s third floor, as part of the Student Union Activities event.

His original design for the Freedom Tower also has been tweaked, but, as he pointed out, the redevelopment plan largely follows his design with four more buildings and open space.

Libeskind says he accepts the wrangling as part of the democratic process – something that al-Qaida terrorists tried to weaken on 9/11 when they struck the towers with hijacked commercial airliners.

But he still tries to work to preserve his vision for the design.

“Working on such a project, you have to fight for what you believe,” he said.

Libeskind explained how he designed the buildings in descending height, but they align if viewed with the nation’s most famous statue in the picture.

As a boy immigrant from Poland, Libeskind said seeing the Statue of Liberty for the first time helped him understand the importance of freedom through the symbol.

In his design for the World Trade Center site, he tried to encapsulate that freedom with public space, a visitor’s center and space geared toward the arts.

“It’s a date that not only changed our lives. It’s changed the world forever,” he said.

Libeskind also presented his urban-style addition to the Denver Art Museum that is meant to partially imitate the Rocky Mountains. It is set to open in October.

To commemorate 9/11, KU is displaying Libeskind’s architectural drawings of his World Trade Center site redevelopment in the gallery on the fourth floor of the Kansas Union until Sept. 29.