Alternative to a Memorial

¶ … 9/11 Memorial in New York City Selection Analysis "Memorials serve so many essential functions: they give us a context for remembering the past, engaging the present, and reflecting on the future. We are seeking to honor the lives lost in the attacks of 9/11 on New York City -- and on Washington, DC and the flight that ended in Shanksville, PA -- as well as during the attack on the World Trade Center on February 26, 1993.

We also need to commemorate the resilience as well as the grieving of survivors, co-workers, neighbors, and citizens profoundly affected. The values of liberty and democracy transcend geography and nationality, and they must be given physical expression as we reimagine Lower Manhattan (Lower Manhattan Developent Corporation, 2003)." Introduction The World Trade Center site was developed and constructed by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey which formed an interstate compact for the project.

The site is composed of roughly sixteen acres and before 9/11, there were six primary buildings on this site; most notably WTC1 and WTC2 which stood over thirteen hundred feet tall. However, after the events of September 11th, 2001, the site was forever changed. The memorial that was to be constructed on top the site was notably one the most important projects in NYC's recent history and as a consequence city planners held a competition for design ideas.

There were more than five thousand design entries presented to the board for the construction of the New York City (NYC) World Trade Center (WTC) memorial site and these entries filtered in from all over the world. These designs were whittled down to just five winners who then advanced into a stage II in which they continued to develop their ideas. Ultimately the city's representatives chose the design ideas of Michael Arad who actually witnessed the plane hit the South Tower from his roof.

This analysis will provide a brief overview of the design concept as well as some of the criticisms that have been made in regards to the design.

Figure 1 - Memorial Site Plan (Lower Manhattan Developent Corporation, 2003) The Design Concept The memorial occupies roughly one half of the sixteen acre WTC site and includes four hundred white swamp trees on the grounds while the memorial consists of two giant waterfalls that outline the structure of the towers; the water drops from street level and vanishes into the holes left by what were once the tallest buildings in New York (Sisto, 2014).

The bottom of the water basin in not visible to onlookers and the marble railing surrounding the waterfalls is engraved with names of the victims of the terror attacks of September 11, 2001. The memorial also is adjacent to the National September 11th Memorial Museum which has been the source of much criticism. Michael Arad, the designer and architect who won the contest and watched the second plane hit the South Tower from his roof on the Lower East Side, originally envision the monument that incorporated the element of water (Gonzalez, 2012).

"The way people came together in New York affected me greatly," he said; "I felt a desire to respond to that. For me, it was a very self-directed, hopefully cathartic, exercise (Gonzalez, 2012)." Arad also simply disregarded some of the original site requirements which called for the memorial to be built below street level, but later after this feature was rejected, Arad had to alter his plan.

"I was afraid that in losing this below-ground memorial, I was losing the entire memorial," said Arad, whose original design aimed to evoke the impassable separation between the living and the dead -- "a threshold that one cannot cross" -- before memorial visitors again ascend to street level "and back to life," Arad said (Gonzalez, 2012). However, the plans were still able to keep the water concept in the end which fall below street level into what seems to be an abyss.

Yet much of the original design was lost given the number of proposed changes from state, local, and federal official as well as the Port Authority to such an extent that one advisor called the project "the architecture of negotiation" (Loos, 2011) Of many of the challenges the project team faced, the positioning of the memorial names seems to be one of the most complex. Families and planners fought for a couple years about the placement of the names before an agreement was finally reached.

The project had many cost overruns as well. In fact, the project at one point was over three times over the original budget. The museum that is one the grounds has also been a major source of contention. Members of the community have voiced complaints about everything from the pictures of the terrorists that were included, to where the unidentified human remains should rest, and the inclusion of a gift shop that many have felt is disrespectful (Sisto, 2014).

If I were given free rein to revise the project, I believe that I would devote my attention to the museum. I would either not construct the museum at all, or.