Associate Professor of Architecture Preston Scott Cohen cautioned against what he called “giant tombstone architecture” and reminded those present to think of Sept. 11 as one person’s death 6,000 times and not as mass murder.

Cohen said the redesign process should avoid the tendency to “turn the actuality of all these individualities into an abstract kitsch memorial.”

“I would prefer the city just continue to move forward rather than make a spectacle of an expression of sympathy,” he said.

Other panelists added that making the building too much of a display would create security issues and could create a new target.

Many of the panelists agreed that a large-scale memorial with an imposed significance was not the best option.

And one pointed to Harvard’s own Memorial Hall as an excellent model.

“Annenberg is a memorial to those who died in the Civil War,” said Robinson Professor in Architecture Jorge Silvetti. “It makes you pause, but it is very functional in everyday life.”

A good memorial, he said, should be subtle.

“That would be the triumph of architecture in memorializing something. To have it exist on an everyday basis, but not be forced to suffer it,” he said.

—Staff writer Wendy D. Widman can be reached at widman@fas.harvard.edu.