Banksy: new World Trade Center shows ‘terrorists won’

Elusive British street artist Banksy, nearing the end of a month-long New York City residency, has launched a scathing attack on the new World Trade Center, calling it “a betrayal”, a “non-event”, and a design that “clearly proclaims the terrorists have won”.

Banksy published an opionion column on his website after it was rejected for publication by the New York Times, slamming the design of One World Trade Center, the 104-storey skyscraper scheduled to be opened on the World Trade Centre site next year.

“As a visitor staying in New York for the past few weeks, one thing has become very clear to me,” Banksy wrote. “You’ve got to do something about the new World Trade Center. That building is a disaster. Well no, disasters are interesting. One World Trade centre [sic] is a non-event. It’s vanilla. It looks like something they would build in Canada.”