Posted on 11/19/2003 8:15:33 AM PST by finnman69
Typical government nitwits.
Votives In Suspension
In their absence, the World Trade Center Towers have attained a greater degree of symbolic significance, their meaning instantaneously transformed on September 11, 2001. As monumental buildings, they were symbols of American capitalism, as voids, they now represent a concept of loss unparalleled in both scale and complexity. Our proposal for the WTC memorial aims to transform the towers' footprints into dual sanctuary spaces that resonate profoundly with a sense of both individual and collective loss.
The memorial sanctuaries will be set into the earth and semi-enclosed from the outside. Only narrow gaps that outline each footprint will allow sunlight to penetrate into these sacred areas. Austere and minimal, the exteriors will give no indication of their interior space. From street level, the sanctuaries' monolithic expanses will invite contemplation and suggest absence.
Once on the memorial grounds, the sanctuaries will only be made visible to visitors by long parapet walls that surround the footprints of the original towers. Most of this area will be kept as green park space providing a versatile venue for memorial ceremonies. Visitors will also be visually drawn to the exposed slurry walls on the western edge of the site as well as the Liberty Wall located on the southern side. The Liberty Wall will be engraved with monumental text that provides a didactic historical timeline of the World Trade Center site. A large part of this story will focus on the heroic efforts of brave rescue workers who worked tirelessly, many of who made the ultimate sacrifice, to save lives on September 11th.
Visitors will descend down a stairway or lift system into each sanctuary, emerging into a darkened, serene environment. Here they will witness an expansive field of votive lights suspended in mid-air creating a sublimely beautiful downpour of loss. The votives, each representing a victim of the terrorist attacks, hang down on cables from the sanctuary ceiling just above a reflecting pool. The cables will function as capillaries that channel liquid fuel into the votives to sustain the symbolic flames. The age of each victim is used to determine the height of the suspended votives creating an irregular field of light that both breaks apart into fragments and coalesces as an entirety. This reinforces the memorial mission to convey both the overall magnitude of loss and pay tribute to individual lives. As a part of the memorial's creation, victims' families and friends will be invited to light the votives that represent their lost loved ones. Each flame, therefore, will be created by an individual act of remembrance.
The name of each victim will be listed horizontally in alphabetical order on the parapet walls that define and encompass each sanctuary space. The procession of names will begin in the sanctuary devoted to the North Tower, where the first plane hit, and conclude in the sanctuary dedicated to the South Tower. A somber underground passageway will connect these two sanctuaries as well as provide access to a burial space located at bedrock for the unidentified remains of victims.
Lower Waters
Water and light symbolize life, rejuvenation and rebirth. By using water and light as key elements of the design and by bringing people directly to the site of the attacks, we hope that visitors will remember not only the loss of life but also the sanctity of life that we live each day. These elements point to the passing of time, and speak to us of emotion and transcendence. The site is designed to provide a place in this city and within each of us where we may find peace in experiencing the challenging, often painful cycle of death, grief, rebirth and life.
Our physical movement throughout the site, the inclined park and the various levels of memorial and museum, represents our emotional movement through the experiences of memory, grief, discovery, hope, and rebirth. We descend to the memorial spaces, the literal and figurative centers, and to the Museum of September 11. Our contact with the names of the victims, their final resting place, the original slurry wall, and bedrock level of the World Trade Center causes us to contemplate the profound loss suffered on September 11 and to be grateful for the many that were saved. As we ascend, we come back to the city and ourselves transformed by the emotional and historic magnitude of that day.
Materials have been carefully chosen to support the concept, symbolism and emotion of the memorial. The memorial space of the North Tower is clad in black granite - solemn, strong, stable - a reference to living memory and to the foundation of the towers. The private area for families of the victims and the intimate area for the public are made of thick walls of earth, to suggest comfort and stability at the depths. The façade of the Museum of September 11 in the South Tower Footprint is stacked glass with sanded edges referring to both the construction and collapse of the towers.
The design meets the daunting challenge of unifying the various site characteristics, the breadth of emotional and historical significance, and the community's many requirements. It is important that the site fulfill two major roles in the complex program of this memorial. First, it is a place of peace, reflection and reverence where we engage ourselves emotionally and spiritually. Second, it addresses the need for an intellectual understanding and historical perspective of the events of September 11, 2001. These are the dual roles of, and the overlap between, the Memorial and the Museum of September 11, 2001.
Passages Of Light:Memorial Cloud
Through "Passages of Light : The Memorial Cloud," we wish to create upon a site scarred by a terrifying loss, sorrow, and grief, a work of shared and individual mourning, as well as a gesture affirming our hopes, common dreams, and ability to rebuild.
Our intention is first to recognize and honor the victims of September 11, 2001 and February 26, 1993 within a special, shrouded, spiritual space, protected from the noise and pace of the city by a crystalline "cloud." The cloud's top surface is a translucent bandage healing a wound. Level with "Ground Zero" (street level) and permitting traversal, it reconnects the urban fabric of downtown. On the ground beneath the cloud each of the 2,982 victims is represented by a radiating circle of light embedded into the floor, which illuminates the engraved name of the individual victim but also projects a subtle ray of light upward into the cloud. During the day, the cloud, like an undulating veil, a sinuous surface forming cathedral-like vaults, channels daylight downward onto the field of names.
Together, the names form a design that we term the "Pompeii Scheme," because it represents individuals equally in the course of their lives, cut short by the attacks. A name appears near those of the people with whom he or she died. For example, the approximately 1400 individuals who perished in Tower One define the largest field of lights. This field is continuous with the group of approximately 600 who died in the second tower. The design's appearance reflects the cloud's topology of cupolas. A "Line of Rescuers" runs through both groups, where Firefighters, Police, and ordained and medical people can be represented.
Our design is guided by our respect for the sacred ground. Accordingly, we limit the cloud to touching the ground for support on only five points; we judiciously open the earth beneath the World Trade Center Tower footprints only to provide visitors access to the symbolic "bedrock" level, creating thereby a processional passage of light and subterranean darkness. The procession that carries visitors beside the repository for the "unidentified remains" connects both footprints with the channel along the exposed slurry wall.
Through the Memorial Cloud we hope to elicit two more responses, one highly physical, the other imaginative, both of awe. One recovers a sensation associated with the World Trade Center Towers when we recall standing in their presence: the urge to look skywards, a vertical gesture associated with hope. With the second gesture we seek to give expression to a relation between those we mourn and those who live on affected by the tragedy and repercussions of the attacks. This is a relation between the finite and the sublime. The cloud's design as a bundle of 10,000 vertical conduits for light which support each other structurally, distributing forces of tension and compression, figuratively represents our shared responsiveness to crisis and our cumulative strength.
Supending Memory
The memorial at the World Trade Center site gives the victim's family members a chance to tell the story of the ones that they have lost. It will give each and every person who witnesses the memorial a chance to learn something about the people who perished and the family members who continue mourn the loss of their loved ones.
The lives lost on September 11, 2001 and February 26, 1993 collectively form the foundation of two memorial gardens rising from where the WTC towers once stood. Each victim is manifested as a symbol of strength, a single column helping support one of two island gardens. As the columns extend through the garden surface at varied heights they transform from concrete into glass. Each unique glass column is a timeline of a victim's defining moments beginning with a birth date and culminating at September 11, 2001 and February 26, 1993. It is an object biography that gives visitors a glimpse of the persons who perished on both days. By sharing the victim's birth date and life story, it enables visitors to relate and form a personal bond which otherwise would not have existed. The memorial column becomes a glowing beacon of each victim; their defining moments shining brightest at night.
In passing between the ever-changing gardens, the visitor is made aware of two other tragic events bridged in time; Somerset County, Pennsylvania and Arlington, Virginia. The memorial bridge is composed of alternating bands of stone and glass, epitomizing the past and the present, the enduring and the ever changing. The name of each victim from Pennsylvania and Virginia is etched into a glass plaque suspended over a pool of reflected azure.
Upon entering the North garden, visitors are greeted with a natural stone wall inlaid with 2982 randomly protruding polished squares. This wall spans the length of the island, shielding it from its frenetic surroundings. Water trickles from an opening at the base of each square into a pristine reflecting pool. The Pool of Tears enfolds the entire memorial site forever preserving Ground Zero as hallowed ground. The expanse of this pool is a metaphor of the collective tears shed by millions around the world.
The memorials become the embodiment of each victim representing them as a summation of time; a collection of moments recorded in each life. Together they form a place of hope and tranquil beauty suspended in a sea of calming motion. 
Garden of Lights
There was a last hour, a last minute, a last second that 2,982 stars went dark. The instant there was this last light there was a first light, 2,982 stars were born. A new constellation expands across the entire site; a new garden expands across the entire site. Time and space slow as the lights from the constellation pass through the garden, through the earth, and create the new constellation below. Above there is the garden, below there is a new sky and 2,982 stars.
The garden of lights links the sky above to the new sky below.
A glass wall surrounds this garden of lights. When it opens everyday from 8:46am to 10:29am it is a breath, a new rhythm for the city. The seed of the garden is the courage of the past. A gardener is invited from a different part of the world each year to nurture this seed. The footprints teem with life, a prairie. Between the footprints the gardener raises an orchard. Each season we walk a new path through the prairie and new seeds grow on the old path. In September the orchard gives fruit, the gift of life nourished by light.
Between the garden above and the new sky below are two rooms the expanse of the footprints. The south room of light is pure light filled with all of the sky above and below. The family moves with their tears in between lights, memory, and life. Leading to the north room of light is an offering path, a stream lined with roses. They give a rose, and the floating petals bring them into the north room of light. A steel wall forged from the salvaged metal of the towers occupies the length of this room. The family passes along its thickness. On the other side of this wall glow 1,275 lights. This is the resting place of the unidentified remains.
Beneath the garden, beneath the rooms of light, we are under the constellation of 2,982 stars that shine down on 2,982 altars. The eight year-old daughter has hand-written the name of her father. Her handwriting is engraved in the alabaster of her father's altar forever. Light shines on each engraved name for eternity. Each visitor has a map of the new constellation and they navigate their path through the stars. The light for those we have lost is with us, at our hands, on our faces. In the distance, the slurry wall accompanies the light down to reveal bedrock. The slurry wall holds the garden, the new sky, and the bedrock below.
In the garden of lights we can look down the path of each light. We see the name inscribed in stone and the light from the shining star. A cloud passes over the city; it is a shadow on the garden, a sparkle in the stars below, a glimmer on the altar, a flicker in the soul.
Reflecting Absence
This design proposes a space that resonates with the feelings of loss and absence that were generated by the death and destruction at the World Trade Center. A pair of reflective pools marks the location of the towers' footprints. The surface of these pools is broken by large voids. These voids can be read as containers of loss, being close-by yet inaccessible.
The pools are submerged thirty feet below street level in the middle of a large open plaza. They too are large voids, open and visible reminders of the absence. The pools are fed by a constant stream of water, cascading down the walls which enclose them. Bordering each pool is a pair of sloped buildings. These buildings create a sense of enclosure, capturing the exposed outer corners of the memorial site and defining a path of circulation around each pool. They also guide visitors to the site into the memorial itself.
Visitors begin their descent into the memorial by entering one of these buildings. This descent removes them from the sights and sounds of the city and immerses them in a cool darkness. As they gradually proceed, step by step, the sound of water falling grows louder, and more daylight filters in from below. At the bottom of their descent, they find themselves behind a thin curtain of water, staring out at an enormous pool that flows endlessly towards a central void that remains empty. A ribbon of names surrounds this pool and the enormity of this space and the multitude of names lining it underscore the vast scope of the tragedy that took place at this site. Standing there at the water's edge, looking at a pool of water that is flowing away into an abyss, a visitor to the site can sense that what is beyond this curtain of water and ribbon of names is inaccessible.
The names of the deceased appear to be in no discernible order. The apparent randomness reflects the haphazard brutality of the deaths and allows for flexibility in the placement of names of friends and relatives in ways that permit for meaningful adjacencies; for example, siblings who perished together at the site could have their names listed side by side. Family members seeking out the name of a loved one are guided by on-site staff or a printed directory to their specific location. The location of the name marks a spot that is their own.
In between the two pools is a short passageway that links them at this subterranean level. At its center is a small alcove where visitors can light a candle. Across from it, a long corridor leads to a chamber that houses unidentified remains. This space is only open to family members and serves as a private contemplative space.
The end of a visit to the memorial is marked by an ascent back to street level. Visitors are again ensconced by darkness, but now the long and narrow passageway leads up towards daylight. As they emerge from the ramped enclosure, they find themselves back in the open plaza.
The western edge of the plaza is bounded by a cultural building that shelters the site from the highway. The remaining three sides are open and link the plaza to adjacent streets and neighborhoods. Tall pines punctuate the plaza's surface, softening its character and creating shaded areas within this large outdoor room. Designed to be a mediating space, the plaza belongs both to the city and to the memorial. It encourages uses that are both contemplative and everyday. It is a living part of the city.
Dual Memory
The memory of an individual and the combined memory of the community as a whole are embodied by the footprints of the former World Trade Center Towers and the new future for the area. On a personal level, and as members of our larger communities, we were all affected by the terrorist attacks on February 26, 1993 and September 11, 2001. The footprints serve as healing points for our great losses.
Elements of water reflect light and memory. 2,982 light portals shine over the "Individual Memory Footprint", where the North Tower of the WTC once stood. Each light glows with individual intensity, honoring all of the victims who died. Elements of water embrace and reflect memories related to those we lost, those who survived and the selfless actions of those who aided in rescue, recovery and healing. The journey to the emotional center of the footprint is a personal experience. Evolving images are reflected as water flows down the walls that support the plane of water above. On glass and stone, the names are revealed. Here, as stories are shared, they become part of our collective. A final resting place for the unidentified remains embraces a private area for family members and loved ones. This space, at bedrock, becomes the most sacred.
Elements of earth create spaces that frame the sky. 92 Sugar Maples trees stand on the "Shared Memory Footprint". The space, where the South Tower of the WTC once stood, is devoted to the shared loss of a community, a city, a country, and the world. These native trees of New York grow as a symbol of new life in the soil of each of the 92 nations brought together by the great tragedies. A shared path guides visitors through bands of nature that form around the emotional center of the footprint. Stone walls that carry messages of hope from each of the countries and a bed of wild roses surround this quiet space for meditation and contemplation.
The emotional centers of each of the footprints resonate at a different pace. The constantly evolving stories of the individual inform the more slowly developing shared perspective of the collective. These encounter one another, exchange their composition, and form landscaped patterns allowing for intimate and public gatherings. Although the intensity of the lights changes during the course of day, and the trees weather with the passing of the seasons, the footprints will act as a constant reminder.
Inversion of Light
As a human being and a witness to the great tragedies of September 11, 2001, and the 1993 terrorist bombings, I seek a way to remember and honor the thousands of innocent lives that were lost and the courage of the heroes. I seek to address this project as a challenge to inspire the human mind and to reaffirm respect for life, to strengthen our resolve to preserve freedom, and to bring about an end to hatred, ignorance, and intolerance.
The work I envision for the site will consist of the universal elements of light, water, air, and earth. Light, which is eternal and which emanates from the beginning of the universe; water, from which life came; and earth and air, which nourish life and the living. I propose to create a street-level park that will preserve the twin towers' footprints and the slurry wall. The park will signify the renewal of life and offer a place for public ceremonies and days of remembrance. The below-grade level beneath the park where the unidentified-remains area is situated, gives both the victims and their families a serene place for visitation, contemplation, and rest.
To enter the underground area of the memorial, one descends a ramp leading to where the victims are represented as light, water, and air. Within the north tower's footprint, a representative floor plan, based on those of the ninety-fourth and ninety-fifth floors, is illuminated from below; the light is blocked in the central area of the plan. On the north wall of the memorial, where the first plane hit, an extended curtain of clear glass will be etched with the names of the lost individuals. The victim's names will be sorted in two main categories, designated by 2001 and 1993. The 2001 category will be organized by locations: World Trade Center site, Somerset County, Pennsylvania and Arlington, Virginia. The victim names within these locations will be organized by civilians and non-civilians (military personnel, NYPD, NYFD and other groups). Behind the glass and along its length and height, water will trickle continuously, representing the eternal movement of life through time. The black-granite east and west walls will be etched with the memorial mission statement and the heroes' insignias; the east wall with the history of events.
In footprint of the south tower, a reflection pond will serve as a tribute to the spirits of the victims; at night, it will be illuminated from beneath by a circle of lights projecting into the sky. In winter, the heat of the lights will vaporize the water and create the image of flames on its surface.
The centrally located unidentified-remains area is enclosed in two semicircular glass walls, unified above by a circular skylight that emerges in the curvilinear park. From this central column ripples out a horizontal configuration that incorporates all elements of the memorial and its surroundings-all columns, the main ramp, all lighting, the museums, the footprints and elements within, and the geography of the surrounding urban grid, extending to the Statue of Liberty and, perhaps, beyond. From this column a blue laser light shines into the universe, connecting the geometry and geography of the earth with the geometry and eternity of the universe.
The proposed memorial, conceptually called Inversion of Light, is a living memorial. Dedicated to world peace, it will ensure that future generations never forget this great tragedy. We, as human beings, hope that we can serve this memory well and lead ourselves toward peacefulness, tranquility, and purity of contemplation. We, as part of the greater universe, hope to transcend the suffering of any single generation and come to an understanding of the authenticity of eternity and the vindication of truth.
Can't. It would hurt Al Quatas self esteem. It would be too...too...real. Nope. It has to show our love for everyone in the global community. It has to show them how sorry we are for offending them.
I totally agree. Dare the b*stards to do it again. It is the only thing to do. I'm sure the memorial chosen will be lovely, but it's a wimpy response to what the Islamic medievals did to us. We should build it bigger and higher than before - show them that a few nutcase, evil, death-lovers will NOT send Americans into a grovelling mass of reflecting-pool builders. (I mean absolutely no disrespect to those who died and their loved ones.)
The cost of reconstructing the towers would be out of sight. Then there would be the cost of insuring them, assuming anyone could even be found to underwrite the insurance.
Then there is the small question of who the tenants would be. Many companies have quietly, or not so quietly in some cases, abandoned the Wall Street area for the perceived greater security and lower profile of Midtown Manhattan. Others have moved operations out of New York City altogether, both to reduce costs and lower their risk profile. I don't think you could come close to filling new twin towers, particularly given the rents that any new owner would have to charge.
Heck, we're still in Bosnia! We're still in Germany for crying out loud! Sheesh!
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