The Waterfalls at the National September 11 Memorial
When the National September 11 Memorial was dedicated and officially opened in New York City on Sunday, September 11, 2011, it offered a chance to reflect on the solemn anniversary and to consider how memorializing the victims of war in a new era has changed.
This new memorial is a tribute to the 2,983 people killed in the 9/11 attacks, not only in New York City, but also in Shanksville, PA, and at the Pentagon. It also pays tribute to those killed in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.
The memorial itself is stunning. Set on roughly eight acres of the former site of the World Trade Center, it features nearly 400 trees, including one tree that miraculously survived the attacks and subsequent collapse of the towers.
There is something deeply moving in the way that this memorial incorporates motion—the motion found in water falling. Two reflecting pools now stand where the towers once stood, with 30 foot waterfalls cascading down each of the pools’ steep sides.
The water falls in white architectural lines, echoing the visual construction of the towers themselves. Visitors can stand at these pools and look down. To watch the thin streams of water falling in sculptural lines, one cannot help but summon up a visual picture of the towers; but the water eerily transforms the indelible images of the falling of the towers into something peaceful, and even soothing.
For Michael Arad, the memorial’s designer (who won the 2004 design competition out of 5,200 entrants), water was an essential component of the memorial. In fact, his initial design, altered out of cost considerations, incorporated underground walkways surrounding the pools, with the victims’ names placed in front of the falling water.
Arad described the plan in his winning-design narrative: “Bordering each pool is a pair of ramps that lead down to the memorial spaces. Descending into the memorial, visitors are removed from the sights and sounds of the city and immersed in a cool darkness. As they proceed, 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. Surrounding this pool is a continuous ribbon of names. The enormity of this space and the multitude of names that form this endless ribbon underscore the vast scope of the destruction. 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.”
Arad, who was in New York during the 2001 attacks, said that he wanted to create a memorial that was “stoic, defiant and compassionate” (“Architect and 9/11 Memorial Both Evolved Over the Years,” New York Times, September 4, 2011). And he named his design, “Reflecting Absence.”
The very title of the design hints at the inherent dichotomies involved in building a new kind of war memorial.
Arad, along with those many others who had a hand in the design process, have interestingly grappled with those dichotomies: the memorial must convey absence while helping visitors to come to terms with a sense of loss; it must not impose a single or too-narrow meaning on the unthinkable and chaotic events; it must be humble and monumental; it must be local and universal. And, as Arad has said, the memorial must be part of the city itself, but it must also be a place to remove oneself from the motion of daily life.
It is a place to be within the city-- still part of the bustle of a busy downtown financial district-- but to step outside of it, as it were.
This, to me, is one of the most significant features of the September 11 Memorial: it is a war memorial set not on a remote battlefield. It is defined by the nearby businesses and residences, the hotels, and parking garages, the subway stops and traffic routes, the noise, crowds, and life of the city of New York.
It is the most “abnormal” place in the most normal of places.
But this is no kind of traditional memorial. Each victim honored by the memorial was a civilian.
The memorial uses the most simple and soothing elements to pay tribute to those who died--water and nature shape the site, providing balance to the stone and bronze of the memorial structures. In this way, the memorial provides a place to create meaning, but it does not enclose one in its own specific interpretations.
Indeed, Arad stated that he did not want to group victims’ names in any kind of order since, in his words “any arrangement that tries to impose meaning through physical adjacency will cause grief and anguish to people who might be excluded from that process, furthering the sense of loss that they are already suffering.”
In the end, though, the victims’ names, which are etched into bronze panels that surround the pools, were put in a specific order. And, to me at least, the order that they were given is significant.
The listing of names on a war memorial is a traditional design element. But in the case of the 9/11 memorial, the names are grouped not by state or military unit.
Instead, they are grouped by the relationships among the individuals. The names of people who worked together, knew each other, and sadly, perished together occupy the same panels.
Somehow, it is this placement that moves me most. There is something so simple in the fact that ultimately, it is the relationships among people that are most important, most remembered. That is one of the meanings that this new war memorial cannot help but convey.
This new memorial is a tribute to the 2,983 people killed in the 9/11 attacks, not only in New York City, but also in Shanksville, PA, and at the Pentagon. It also pays tribute to those killed in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.
The memorial itself is stunning. Set on roughly eight acres of the former site of the World Trade Center, it features nearly 400 trees, including one tree that miraculously survived the attacks and subsequent collapse of the towers.
There is something deeply moving in the way that this memorial incorporates motion—the motion found in water falling. Two reflecting pools now stand where the towers once stood, with 30 foot waterfalls cascading down each of the pools’ steep sides.
The water falls in white architectural lines, echoing the visual construction of the towers themselves. Visitors can stand at these pools and look down. To watch the thin streams of water falling in sculptural lines, one cannot help but summon up a visual picture of the towers; but the water eerily transforms the indelible images of the falling of the towers into something peaceful, and even soothing.
For Michael Arad, the memorial’s designer (who won the 2004 design competition out of 5,200 entrants), water was an essential component of the memorial. In fact, his initial design, altered out of cost considerations, incorporated underground walkways surrounding the pools, with the victims’ names placed in front of the falling water.
Arad described the plan in his winning-design narrative: “Bordering each pool is a pair of ramps that lead down to the memorial spaces. Descending into the memorial, visitors are removed from the sights and sounds of the city and immersed in a cool darkness. As they proceed, 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. Surrounding this pool is a continuous ribbon of names. The enormity of this space and the multitude of names that form this endless ribbon underscore the vast scope of the destruction. 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.”
Arad, who was in New York during the 2001 attacks, said that he wanted to create a memorial that was “stoic, defiant and compassionate” (“Architect and 9/11 Memorial Both Evolved Over the Years,” New York Times, September 4, 2011). And he named his design, “Reflecting Absence.”
The very title of the design hints at the inherent dichotomies involved in building a new kind of war memorial.
Arad, along with those many others who had a hand in the design process, have interestingly grappled with those dichotomies: the memorial must convey absence while helping visitors to come to terms with a sense of loss; it must not impose a single or too-narrow meaning on the unthinkable and chaotic events; it must be humble and monumental; it must be local and universal. And, as Arad has said, the memorial must be part of the city itself, but it must also be a place to remove oneself from the motion of daily life.
It is a place to be within the city-- still part of the bustle of a busy downtown financial district-- but to step outside of it, as it were.
This, to me, is one of the most significant features of the September 11 Memorial: it is a war memorial set not on a remote battlefield. It is defined by the nearby businesses and residences, the hotels, and parking garages, the subway stops and traffic routes, the noise, crowds, and life of the city of New York.
It is the most “abnormal” place in the most normal of places.
But this is no kind of traditional memorial. Each victim honored by the memorial was a civilian.
The memorial uses the most simple and soothing elements to pay tribute to those who died--water and nature shape the site, providing balance to the stone and bronze of the memorial structures. In this way, the memorial provides a place to create meaning, but it does not enclose one in its own specific interpretations.
Indeed, Arad stated that he did not want to group victims’ names in any kind of order since, in his words “any arrangement that tries to impose meaning through physical adjacency will cause grief and anguish to people who might be excluded from that process, furthering the sense of loss that they are already suffering.”
In the end, though, the victims’ names, which are etched into bronze panels that surround the pools, were put in a specific order. And, to me at least, the order that they were given is significant.
The listing of names on a war memorial is a traditional design element. But in the case of the 9/11 memorial, the names are grouped not by state or military unit.
Instead, they are grouped by the relationships among the individuals. The names of people who worked together, knew each other, and sadly, perished together occupy the same panels.
Somehow, it is this placement that moves me most. There is something so simple in the fact that ultimately, it is the relationships among people that are most important, most remembered. That is one of the meanings that this new war memorial cannot help but convey.