Architecture: Ground Zero Memorial Becomes Necropolis to Grief
(The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of Bloomberg.)
By James S. Russell
Feb. 15 (Bloomberg) -- When Michael Arad's winning design for a memorial at Ground Zero was first unveiled in January 2004, it won praise for its compelling subtlety. Reminiscent of the simplicity of Maya Lin's Vietnam War Memorial, Arad outlined the footprints of the destroyed twin towers with torrents of water that would vanish into pits.
The design united the idea of a vortex, evoking the devastation of Sept. 11, 2001, with life-giving water that urged contemplation.
A year later, comparisons can no longer be made to Lin's masterpiece. It was inevitable the planned memorial would grow to a disturbingly large size, once it was deemed that the towers' footprints must be entirely preserved -- for political, not design reasons, in response to pleas from some of the victims' family members.
In the past year, the proposed project has expanded into a vast commemorative complex; it threatens to become a grandiose paean to grief.
Arad's original design called for a gallery around each pit, opening to the waterfall. In front, a low wall would bear the engraved names of those lost on Sept. 11. One could accept the lack of specificity in the first design presentation; it was the product of only weeks of work and heavy doctoring by officials behind the scenes.
Empty Grandeur
Just before Christmas, New York Governor George Pataki, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Lower Manhattan Development Corporation officials unveiled an updated design of the Ground Zero memorial. That presentation focused on humanizing refinements to the 4.7-acre memorial plaza by landscape architect Peter Walker, who is working with 34-year-old Arad and the architecture firm Davis Brody Bond.
Unfortunately, officials have disclosed little about the underground spaces, which have expanded hugely without any refinement in design. A grand, 12,000-square-foot hall will link the galleries of the north and south towers, but its only purpose is to house a directory of the deceased.
One level below, at bedrock -- which Arad had reserved for a private mausoleum containing unidentified remains -- a 60-foot- high, 24,000-square-foot hall has been added. It will expose the stubs of the massive exterior columns that held up the north tower and a 70-foot length of the now-famous slurry wall.
Nothing else seems planned for this space, as big as a floor of a standard office tower. In one rendering, visitors stand inches from the slurry wall and stare at it -- presumably transfixed by the air-bubble pattern in its sprayed-concrete surface.
Flushing Sounds
The surfaces below ground are finished in identical grids of cast concrete, suggesting a vast, bland gloominess. There's no intimacy to contrast with the enormity. With all that water pouring down around you, and its noise echoing off all those hard surfaces, the effect could only be of a gigantic lavatory in a perpetual state of flush.
No proportion or detail speaks to the individual in this design, now budgeted at an intimidating $250 million. Architecture only works when in some conscious or subconscious way it registers at a recognizable human scale, tunes itself to physical forces, or to the body. The size of the tower footprints themselves (equal to half of a city block) registers the enormity of the tragedy.
Teddy Bears, Twisted Beams
Imposing as it is, officials no longer regard Arad's design as sufficient commemoration. They have added an underground Memorial Center -- essentially a museum. A report released last year spelled out grand curatorial ambitions. It will display artifacts of the destruction -- the twisted beams and wrecked fire trucks now stored in a hanger at Kennedy Airport -- and emblems of grief such as the teddy bears, origami birds and American flags visitors left at the site. It will tell the life story of each victim.
This $90 million center could, at 70,000 square feet or more, be larger than the underground memorial space. Davis Brody Bond has just embarked on the enormously difficult task of defining a program that does not turn the Memorial Center into a celebration of unending sorrow or a chamber of horrors.
The International Freedom Center -- its scope and cost ($75 million is a safe guess) as yet unformed -- will fill much of the ``cultural'' building at the northeast corner of the memorial plaza. A visitor center is also planned, so that no one need feel that they have to approach the site without being told what to think.
Redemption?
To appreciate the vastness of this project, consider the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor: a simple, 184-foot-long pavilion. Tellingly, it was completed 30 years after the Pearl Harbor attack, long after the story had become a redemptive one - - the nation's darkest hour transformed into a victory against fascism.
Regrettably, the story that began at Ground Zero isn't over yet, and we don't know how it will end. The ``war on terror'' and the lives it takes must inescapably be part of Ground Zero's meaning.
The memorial, its mission statement says, must ``strengthen our resolve to preserve freedom and inspire an end to hatred, ignorance, and intolerance.'' This laudable goal has all but vanished as it has grown into a necropolis essentially dedicated only to the victims.
The visitor a generation or so from now might conclude that the scope of the tragedy was so enormous that the terrorists succeeded in their goals. It's time to slow this juggernaut and take stock.
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