Posted by Brian on October 14, 2003 at 09:54:34:In Reply to: How did your WTC Memorial Turn Out? posted by Mark R B on June 28, 2003 at 19:27:16:
Hello everyone.
As we wait in limbo for the finalists to be announced, I have a few remarks based on my experience working on a design. I'll post details and a link to my site in a few days, whenever the competition is officially over.
I started on my design in early 2002, although I did not initially intend to participate in the competition. Like many of you, I decided I had to for various reasons. Does anybody else notice the similarity with Close Encounters of the Third Kind. This strange obsession with drawing something none of us have seen yet.
My idea grew out of an unrelated project. I was working on a math problem that generated some interesting shapes and visual effects. I didn't see it as a memorial, but it gave me an idea for a theme that I later decided to build on in what became a formal design. I am not an architect, so it took me over a year to refine the idea and to locate people who could help work it out. I am glad I did so. Had I not been working on this for so long, early on without knowing it, I would not have been able to put together a decent presentation.
My basic concept was to remember the people, but also the towers, not so much the specific structures, but the idea of a skyscraper and the aspirations it represents. I wanted the site to create a physical memory of the towers, the people in them, and what happened there. The challenge in doing this was to remember both the people and the buildings in a way that respects each equally, and does so without being morbid.
I spent a lot of time thinking about the experience visitors would have. I wanted visitors to be confronted with the physical scale of the site. If you have not been to the WTC, it is hard to appreciate its scale. I wanted visitors to look up and see something very tall, but delicate, something impressive and fragile at the same time. The visitors would look down to see the tributes to the individuals who died there. The visitor is confronted with the scale of the former site, which is contrasted against the diminuitive scale of the people who once worked there. I will describe this further, but there are characteristics of the design that are a giveaway, so I'll remain mum for now. In any case, while refining the design, I was looking for a physical image and an emotional response more than a specific site plan.
Having worked on this for a while, I concluded that whatever the jury selects, they should seriously consider designs that have a very tall object as the focus. This could be an occupied structure (museum?), a decorative spire, or a light sculpture. Whatever the case, I do think it is important to remind people of what used to be there in an artful way. Put it this way, in twenty years, there will be an entire generation of people who did not witness 9/11. They will have no concept of what used to be there.
There is another reason to build a tall memorial. It will be visible from a distance. Many people who live and work in the NY area will want to be able to see the memorial on the skyline. This is why the Tribute in Light was so popular, because they could view it from miles away. If the memorial is diminuitive relative to the office buildings, it will be invisible to people even a block away. Then it will become a tourist site.
I suppose we will know the outcome of stage 1 soon enough. I hope that whatever they pick, it challenges the Liebeskind plans and pushes the envelope. It will be disappointing if all eight plans fit neatly into the box defined by the September 11th Plaza (is it just me or does that sound like an outdoor shopping mall?). We shall see...
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