The book examines the tower as the architectural expression of a long-term commitment to the city. The conclusion is that development must be driven not only by property value and architectural ingenuity but also by respect for collective memory and common humanity.

The book argues that these public commitments find architectural expression in a radically different tectonic to that of contemporary patterns of development. The volume presents a series of prompts, provocations, and projects to address the challenge of designing a tower that can be understood as a monolithic whole, even if assembled from discrete parts.