In an interview last night on MSNBC’s “Hardball with Chris Matthews,” the developer Donald Trump panned the plans to build the Freedom Tower.

Calling the 1,776-foot building “a terrible design,” Mr. Trump said the master planner at the ground zero site, architect Daniel Libeskind, was “an egghead architect who really doesn’t have a lot of experience designing something like this.”

“It looks like a junkyard,” Mr. Trump said. “Frankly, I’d rather see nothing than see that pile of junk. I don’t want to have the terrorists win, Chris. And that’s what’s going to happen if we build this pile of junk.”

The star of NBC’s reality show “The Apprentice” said that instead of the Freedom Tower, he would like to see the Twin Towers rebuilt – one story taller.

“What I want to see built is the World Trade Center, stronger and maybe a story taller. … That’s what people want,” Mr. Trump said, according to a transcript of the interview. “They don’t want to be stuck with five or six buildings that were designed by a guy that shouldn’t be designing buildings, in my opinion.”

Renting any building on the site will be a challenge, the developer said.

“It’s economically a very, very tough deal because, whether you build a World Trade Center or build Freedom Tower, a lot of people aren’t going to go in,” Mr. Trump said.

As an alternative to high-rise buildings, he said, a park would be an acceptable plan.

“The case could be made to build a great monumental park and call it Monumental Park, and that’s what it would be,” Mr. Trump said. “I like that much better than what I’m seeing architecturally.”

“Don’t build the Freedom Tower,” Mr. Trump said. “I mean, it’s a wonderful name, but it’s a horrible building.”