Posted by that guy from greg.org on October 09, 2003 at 21:00:02:In Reply to: Re: Odds and Ends posted by Jan Orfe on October 08, 2003 at 10:47:41:
Hey Jan,
It sounds like you found the right way for you to approach the Memorial, especially the strong consideration you give to the visitor's experience, today and generations from now.
When I visited the WWI memorial that inspired Maya Lin, I didn't have a connection to even one of the 75,000 names carved on its surface, but it was still a powerful experience. Now even the Vietnam memorial is starting to move into the distance as well. At a public hearing for the Memorial, dozens of firefighters and their families spoke out very strongly against "the Vietnam treatment," or a single way of listing the names of those who died.
Like you, I ultimately felt that I couldn't NOT propose something for the WTC Memorial, and like you, I fully expect NOT to be selected as a finalist. At least one reason: my Memorial proposal is driven first by a concept, then an experience. Form isn't an afterthought, but it's absolutely not the first priority, either. I will bet that many people will mingle remembrance of the _Towers_ with remembrance of the _people_ and propose something awe-some or monumental, or even _architectural_. I decided not to do this, but that means I have probably proposed something that is not easy to grasp on the first few passes. That's probably a dealbreaker, but it's also unavoidable, frankly.
My idea for the Pentagon, I carefully called it a "response," but it was basically a reaction to what I saw as a terribly misplaced emphasis on individualism at the expense of any context or reference to the attack itself. When I put out my idea, it was knowing full well it _wouldn't_ be built, because it wasn't in the competition at all. And if anything, the form--which is basically a 3-D scale model of the path the plane took, like an airplane's contrails solidified in space--isn't esoteric or abstract _enough_. The idea and the experience associated with it are probably too literal and wrenching to ever be appropriate.
As for the concept-to-form translation, in March the Air Force unveiled their own memorial, which will stand across the street from the Pentagon's 9/11 Memorial. It's based on the same contrail idea, and it looks very elegant and memorable. The real memorial should have lay somewhere in between 184 "memorial units" and the horrifying trail of the plane.
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