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The wrong memorial

14 comments on The wrong memorial

The wrong memorial
: So they selected the World Trade Center memorial.

I’m terribly upset.

It is Reflecting Absence, the bathroom-floor design: pools lined in cold tile meant to display emptiness where the towers and their lives stood, all dripping with tears, the names of the lost engraved in haphazard order because that’s the way they were taken.

I want to scream.

Here is what I said about it when I saw the model. It has only settled worse on my soul since.

This is not how we should remember and learn and honor and teach and fight and defy and grow and heal.

We are rushing into this and we will regret it.

: UPDATE: Michele is equally unhappy about the choice. We’ve exchanged email about it for we’re both upset.

14 responses to “The wrong memorial”

  1. Joe Maller Avatar
    Joe Maller

    I agree with you in that the Votives was one of my favorite designs and I agree with you that this whole thing is being rushed. However all memorials seem rushed nowadays, so it’s not much of a surprise. The only criticism of the Votives I would posit is it’s abstract resemblance to the Oklahoma City memorial, which was also rushed, and somewhat overwrought, but by almost all accounts still a very moving experience.
    Reflecting Absence was my other favorite design. I’m optimistic that it will turn out remarkable. Considering some of the tower and memorial designs that were honestly considered, I think we’ve lucked into designs that have a sense of reverence, awe and respect. Had they picked that multimedia extavaganza crap I might have had to move to a new city.
    Regret is too strong a word. No one except the most steadfast curmudgeons are going to regret this. Life’s too short to join that club.
    In a lot of ways the design doesn’t matter. Like the Viet Nam memorial, it’s purpose and experience will transform it. People will go, and the people who do go will transform the space. It will be sacred.

  2. ....a moment with Easycure Avatar
    ….a moment with Easycure

    There is no memorial that will be universally loved. The final design will reflect what most people wanted…..which is a reflection of our nation. Most people want some things, other people may want the same thing but similar, and other may want something completely different.
    It is a reflection of the whole country, and the whole concept of freedom.
    When it comes down to it, though, it does not matter what I think. The main thing is, truly, that most of the families of the victims can live with it.

  3. lk Avatar
    lk

    It’s a darn shame they did not wait until there was a UBA (unanimous blogosphere agreement). Probably a media conspiracy. Hey.

  4. Ed Batista Avatar
    Ed Batista

    The main thing is, truly, that most of the families of the victims can live with it.
    This raises an interesting issue. My understanding is that the military, vets and their families were, for the most part, vehemently opposed to Maya Lin’s Vietnam War Memorial design when it was announced because it was perceived as insufficiently respectful. And yet today it’s recognized as deeply fitting, even reverential. Not to be flippant, but people seem to think of it as the “gold standard” for memorials.
    Is there a parallel with the World Trade Center memorial? Does the design that was selected meet some immediate needs (or contemporary fashions in design), while sacrificing long-term meaning?

  5. linden Avatar
    linden

    “Anthony Gardner, who lost his brother in the Sept. 11 attack and is a member of a coalition for family groups, said the design is “unacceptable.”
    “
    And it begans…
    Also, yes, they all suck.

  6. Brian Avatar
    Brian

    I was one of the also-rans in the design competition. Of the eight finalists, I think Reflecting Absence was the best of the lot. It is a simple design, which will allow visitors to read it in different ways.
    That said, this was a rush job so that Pataki could lay the cornerstone for the Liberty Tower in time for the Republican convention. They should have allowed another two or three years, minimum, before deciding on a permanent memorial to an event that is not fully understood.

  7. Jeremy Brown Avatar
    Jeremy Brown

    Jeff,
    Your idea for the 3 minute documentaries on the lives of all those who died on 9/11 is one that has haunted me. Wouldn’t it be possible to get people on board to make those films and then find a place in lower Manhattan to house them as a memorial for those who feel something absent from the one at ground zero itself? The idea is such a good one that it would be a shame not to do it. Don’t you have the connections necessary to do it anyway? It could become something truly springing from the ground up, something born of the actual community. Of course it’s easy for *me* to say “do it anyway” — I’m sure these things are hard to put into action. Though even if the project were to take many years to complete, the process itself would be a kind of memorial, a kind of rebuilding.

  8. Scott Partee Avatar
    Scott Partee

    There was so much they could have done with this memorial. It’s almost as if they are saying it shouldn’t be that special because we’re going to need more such memorials in the future.
    They chose a terrible building replacement design, too.

  9. Lola Avatar
    Lola

    The whole thing is just too rushed. This design just doesn’t resonate with me – it reminds me too much of the Vietnam Memorial, MLK Memorial. Oh, wait . . . these two memorials were designed by Maya Lin, right? Isn’t there any other types other than minimalism (I’m not into abstract art as a general rule) that would work just as well?

  10. Sandy P. Avatar
    Sandy P.

    Could this design be part of PC correctness?
    We have the faces and names of everyone, pieces of everything, yet this strikes me as really wanting to gloss over what happened and “move on.”

  11. Ann-Marie Avatar
    Ann-Marie

    I think it is too early to memorialize the towers because we have yet to see the full impact of that day. This was an event that started a war and may be a turning point for our nation. What do waterfalls have to do with that? This could be a memorial for victims of an earthquake or cancer.
    And I want to be respectful of the families, but I don’t agree that it is primarily for them; it should be for the nation. I would like an element (which I cannot describe) that captures how unthinkable that day was. Certainly not the violent media images, something artistic but more evocative than pools of water.
    In the case of the Vietnam memorial, the image of a gash in our land is very appropriate and there the list turns the cold “body count” administration of the war into personal names that you can touch and take rubbings of and leave flowers by. I think it is appropriate for a long and controversial war. The use of time in Oklahoma City communicates the how much was lost in an instant.
    I agree with Mr. Giuliani. Start over.

  12. timekeeper Avatar
    timekeeper

    I am apparently in a minority here, but of the three finalists, the winner was the one I would have chosen. To me, there is something very moving about a grove of trees standing in what had once been a concrete plaza, surrounded by tall concrete, steel, and glass towers. The pools will reflect and magnify the effect of the trees.
    It is impossible to come up with a design that will please everyone, but sometimes a single, minimalist design is more effective than a baroque, overwrought memorial.

  13. linden Avatar
    linden

    The opposite of minimalism is not “baroque” or “overwrought”. This thing has been leached of any meaning.

  14. Ted Avatar
    Ted

    As I posted elsewhere, I think it’s a good design and a good compromise on all the conflicting needs. The people who live in the neighborhood understand the need of the families to have a memorial, but not everyone will be happy. I don’t think most of the survivors understand what a Hell hole our neighborhood has been for 2 1/2 years. As someone who has lived within a block of the WTC for 9 years, I am anxious to see reconstruction begin. The WTC is the place my children went to daycare and the shopping area where our bank, drugstore, pizza shop, etc. were all located. We are eager to get our neighborhood back.
    This is a place where many people died (but not a final resting place of anyone). It is also the center of one of America