Illuminating 9/11 Memorial plan selected
Katie Nelson
The Arizona Republic
A committee charged by the governor with keeping Sept. 11 etched in Arizona's minds has found a way to do it by using a resource that's all Arizona: the sun.
The state's 9/11 Memorial Commission on Thursday picked the memorial design. The winning concept uses sunlight to illuminate phrases about the terrorist attacks of 2001 and how they affected people in Arizona.
The design is circular, with a solid concrete base. Above it is a steel visor with words cut into the metal. As the sun shines down, light will stream through, projecting the words onto the concrete below.
Different sections of phrases will come into focus at different times of the day and year depending on the sun's angle. And only on Sept. 11 each year it will fully illuminate an 18-inch piece of a steel beam from the 44th floor of Tower One of the World Trade Center. At 50 feet in diameter, the memorial will be big enough for a classroom of children to gather on the floor, the commissioners said.
At eight feet high and sunk three feet into the ground, it also won't dominate other memorials in Wesley Bolin Memorial Plaza.
"We love it because it's a simple but sophisticated use of the sunlight to tell this complex story of the Arizona experience in relationship to 9/11," said Gregory Sale, of the Arizona Commission on the Arts, who helped with the selection process.
"It's very moving, from an emotional visceral point of view," added Donna Killoughey Bird, a commission member whose husband, Gary, died in the World Trade Center that day. Each proposal was thoughtful, creative and compelling, but, "this one was more."
A pair of Tempe artists and the staff at a Phoenix architecture firm produced the winning design. Matthew and Maria Salenger of coLAB Designs and architect Eddie Jones of Jones Studio Inc. were one of 16 groups to apply to create the memorial. They were one of five groups asked to come up with a proposal.
"The testimonials, facts, the feelings expressed are real teaching points and reminders of how 9/11 affected all of us," Matthew Salenger said of the phrases that will be used. "And sunlight is our best resource, so it made sense to utilize sunlight to get those messages across in a cohesive way."
The commission has spent the last three years raising more than a half-million dollars to pay for the memorial, which will also include an educational component at the request of Gov. Janet Napolitano. Scottsdale high school teacher Steve Speisman, whose brother Robert died on the plane that crashed into the Pentagon, is helping create a curriculum for teachers to use on the Sept. 11 anniversary.
Many of the donors came together for "Dinner and a Movie with the Governor" on Wednesday night, before the winning design was picked. The donors sipped chardonnay and champagne and ate pasta at Caffe Boa in Tempe before taking in an Arizona-filmed movie, Tin Cup.
"This (the memorial) will not only commemorate the losses but reaffirm the history," Napolitano told the donors.
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/1117911memorial-ON.html
