Remembering 9/11

Construction began without ceremony May 8 on the memorial of the attacks on the World Trade Center.

"Reflecting Absence," the design selected for the memorial, features two pools located over the footprints of the former towers. Waterfalls enclose the pools on every side, flowing down into an abyss at each pool's center.

Michael Arad, a 1999 graduate of Tech's master's program in architecture, designed "Reflecting Absence."

Arad said he wanted to evoke the loss felt for those killed by placing a visible void in the heart of Manhattan.

Now a partner with Handel Architects and a member of the New York City Housing Authority, Arad visited Tech in the spring to talk about his design and the challenge he went through to see it chosen.

He thanked Associate Dean Doug Allen and other members of the College of Architecture for their help.

"This is where it started. My development as an architect began here at Tech," Arad said.

"When I needed help, I didn't hesitate to contact [members of the College of Architecture], even when I was developing my ideas for the World Trade Center memorial. They have been helpful through the whole process and continue to help me through the process now," Arad said.

Arad was selected from a wide pool of applicants in the competition to design the World Trade Center memorial.

The design competition began in the spring of 2003, when the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation announced internationally that a memorial would be built.

More than 5,200 designs were entered, reflecting a variety of different thoughts on the attacks from people of all backgrounds. Eight finalists were selected that November, and on Jan. 6, 2004, a jury chose "Reflecting Absence" as the winner. The final design was revealed Jan. 14.

In the final version of "Reflecting Absence," trees and leafy plants surround the two pools, which lie open and clear to reflect the sky.

Along the borders of the pools are ramps descending beneath the park's surface. The cool darkness created by this space houses a litany of the names of those killed in the attacks, etched onto the walls of the enclosure.

The names are not arranged in any particular order, mirroring the senseless brutality of the killings. Visitors can find specific names with the help of on-site staff and a directory.

Beneath the pools, the only audible sound comes from the waterfalls, which mask the noises of the city.

Visitors look out over the pools from behind the curtains of water, sheltered from the world around them. In between the two pools is a hallway in which visitors can leave something behind in memory of loved ones.

Arad's original design did not include any plants, but consisted of only the two pools and an open plaza filling the rest of the space.

Many considered this emptiness to be too harsh for the memorial, instead wishing for something that celebrates the city's rebirth.

As a result, landscape architect Peter Walker was hired to add vegetation to the proposal in an effort to make the surface a living part of the city.

The current design has been met with some criticism, much of which is due to the project's cost.

Currently, the memorial is projected to cost nearly $1 billion, a figure comparable to the price of the World Trade Center itself when it was completed in 1970.

"The costs must be capped at $500 million...any price higher than that would be inappropriate," said Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York City.

Furthermore, the memorial will cost $40 million per year to operate, an estimate given by Mayor Bloomberg in Feb. 2006.

Other criticisms of the design include those of the New York City fire and police departments, who wish that the names of their officers be set apart from those of the civilians who died in the attacks.

Some of the families who lost loved ones want the memorial to be above ground, and others are worried that the waterfalls will forever remind people of the tower's falling, rather than honor those whose lives were lost.

On the day that construction began, relatives and other concerned citizens arrived to protest the construction of the "Reflecting Absence" design.

That same week, the Coalition of 9/11 Families filed a lawsuit against the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, claiming that the design violated laws against developing historic sites.

However, the president of the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation stated that the design had the blessing of the families of the deceased, and that construction would continue as planned.

Currently, the memorial is set to open on the eighth anniversary of the terrorist attacks, Sept. 11, 2009.