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Memorial
Finalists: Public Speaks Out
by Etta Sanders
Thousands of shimmering lights, pools of water, and walls of translucent
faces that float like memories. These are some of the signature features
of the eight memorial designs chosen as finalists out of 5,201 submissions
from 63 countries, and currently on display at the Winter Garden in the
World Financial Center.
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By the end of this month, the 13-member jury is to choose which
of them is to become the World Trade Center Memorial.
The public gave the finalists tepid praise and lots of criticism
at open workshops held by Imagine New York, part of the Municipal
Art Society. While there was enthusiasm for certain elements—the
use of water and the preservation of the slurry wall—the plans
were judged “sterile,” “cold,” “creepy,”
or, as one participant put it, “like something you’d see
at Trump plaza.”
“Overall, people were pretty unfulfilled,” said Michael
Kuo, Imagine New York project manager. “People were responding
to the eight designs, but they found they were also exploring things
that were not in the designs.”
Those reactions were echoed at a meeting of Community Board 1’s
WTC Redevelopment Committee held Dec. 1. Chairwoman Madelyn Wils
described all eight finalists as
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“un-inspirational.” And,
she said, the designs gave little consideration “for anyone
other than the dead and the families of the dead.”
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Board members said the designs created obstacles rather than
connections between the site and the rest of the community.
And they complained that they were too mournful and morbid,
and lacked any relevance to the World Trade Center and the
events of Sept. 11.
The committee gave three plans, Passages of Light, Inversion
of Light and Votives in Suspension, the highest grades for
integration into the neighborhood. One design, Suspending
Memory, was roundly rejected because it made it “impossible
to cross the site.”
There was also no shortage of opinion at the Imagine New York
Workshop, which drew 300 people. In classrooms at Pace University
over three days, people gathered in groups of 10 to 15 to
critique the designs: how well did they integrate into the
neighborhood and the
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rest of the site? How would future generations view them?
Family members of the victims liked the designs that incorporated
photographs and biographies. They also liked lists of names, but said
names were not enough. “When we’re all gone and it’s
just a name on a wall, there will be no connection with who the people
were,” said Al Santora, father of a firefighter killed on Sept.
11.
Long-standing differences between area residents and victims’
family members resurfaced. Residents rejected anything that looked
like a cemetery. Family members favored those same designs because
they looked like a cemetery.
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A common frustration was not about what was in the designs,
but what was missing—a piece of the World Trade Center
itself, such as the brass sphere that stood in the plaza or
the skeletal steel skin of the last piece of the building
to be removed.
Nor was there anything that evoked the horror of the attacks
or the poignancy and resiliency of those who carried on in
the aftermath.
“What shocked me is that they are completely devoid from
anything I associated with those days,” said Kimberly
Grieger, who worked for eight months as a volunteer during
the recovery operation. “They are so clinical. So empty.”
Arturo Garcia-Costas said a permanent memorial should capture
the feeling of the impromptu memorials of
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flowers, candles, messages and mementos that sprang up within a day of the attacks—“reminiscent
of what happened at Union Square,” he said, “with
an explosion of creativity in the face of destruction.”
Jack Lynch, the outspoken father of a slain firefighter, said the
World Trade Center memorial should be more like the ones at Pearl
Harbor or Hiroshima that both remember and remind. The eight finalists
failed to do that, he said. “These designs wouldn’t be out
of place at the Epcot Center. There’s absolutely no connection
with what happened.”
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Another complaint was that the finalists lacked diversity. “It’s
eight different versions of the same thing,” said one participant.
The competition guidelines specified that the memorial should make
the footprints visible, recognize the individuals who died, and create
a place for contemplation. Kuo, who was a member of the committee
that drafted the guidelines, said they were intended to preserve the
essential elements, “while not tying the hands of the jury.”
Some felt they might have had the opposite effect.
Almost all the designs flunked the test of integration into the surrounding
neighborhood. One participant pointed to how one design, a body of
water surrounding the footprints, created an obstacle for anyone crossing
from west to east. “The woman who works in the World Financial
Center and wants to get to Century 21. What are they going to do?
Swim there?”
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There were also questions about the maintenance and sustainability
of some of the plans. Several people said it was backward
to have planned the office buildings before the memorial.
For Lynch, the rebuilding process was moving too fast. “We
haven’t had time to absorb this,” he said, “I
hope when we do it we do it right. Or future generations will
say ‘what the heck was the matter with those people?
What were they thinking?’”
Kuo said he has trust in the jury and hopes they view the
designs as a
work in progress. “I’m a believer in a long process,
and adjustments along the way,” he said.
Although the selection process is not formally open to public
input, the community board is issuing a resolution and Imagine
New York is preparing a report summarizing the responses at
the workshops and the thousands of comments posted to their
web site.
How much public opinion will influence the jury is unclear.
Said Kevin Rampe, president of the LMDC, “Anything submitted
to us will be forwarded to the jury and the jury can decide
what they want to do with it.”
To see more images and descriptions of the memorial design
finalists, go to www.renewnyc.com.
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Dual Memory
Brian Swan and Karia Sierralta
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Garden
of Lights
Pierre David
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Inversion
of Light
Toshio Sasaki
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Lower
Waters
B. Campbell and M. Neumann
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Passages
of Light
bbc art+architecture
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Reflecting
Absence
Michael Arad
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Suspending Memory
Joseph Karadin with Hsin-Yi Wu
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Votives in
Suspension
Norman Lee and Michael Lewis
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