'Worst Pile of Crap Architecture I've Seen.'

If he was in charge of picking a replacement for the World Trade Centre in New York, Donald Trump would know what to say to the architect: "You're fired."

Unfortunately for the bouffant-haired property magnate and latterday reality TV star, the project to build a new tower on the site is not under his control.

But that didn't stop him from unveiling his own project to fill the void at Ground Zero.

Speaking at the eponymous Trump Tower in Manhattan, Mr Trump said that his own design of a replica of the original towers, or even a park, was preferable to the Freedom Tower, the project currently envisaged for the site. The plan, said Mr Trump, not one to mince his words, "looks like a junkyard, a series of broken-down angles that don't match each other. And we have to live with this for hundreds of years? It is the worst pile of crap architecture I've ever seen in my life.

"Why are we building this monstrous skeleton known as the Freedom Tower?" he asked. "If the Freedom Tower is built, the terrorists win. If someone knocked down the Statue of Liberty, you wouldn't put the Eiffel Tower in its place."

Although Mr Trump has no official role in the process, he does have one formidable weapon. "I only have the power of persuasion," he said. "It's a very simple power, but sometimes it can be very strong."

The star of the original American TV version of The Apprentice, and the name emblazoned across everything from a perfume to a game to his autobiography, Mr Trump is the latest calamity to befall the Freedom Tower plan.

Originally envisaged as 60 storeys of office space topped by a lattice-structure concealing wind turbines and support cables, the Freedom Tower plan was sent back to architects earlier this month after police expressed concerns that the building would be vulnerable to terrorist attack.

The 541-metre design was chosen by developer Larry Silverstein, who owns the lease on the World Trade Centre site, and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the land.

But the architects behind the design, Daniel Libeskind, who won a design competition, and the newcomer David Childs, selected by Mr Silverstein, fell out. Mr Libeskind subsequently left the project.

One of the proposed towers in the design backed by Mr Trump would be the tallest building in the world, he said.

But he denied that there was an element of vanity involved. "This has nothing to do with putting Trump at the top. We should build a taller, stronger more beautiful version of the World Trade Centre. This is what people want built."

He did not elaborate on a name for his proposal.