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Any marker to ‘9/11’ must sit in relation to polar opposites:the capitalist drive to extract dollars per sq ft on the site anda desire to leave space for memory of this atrocity. But arethese truly irreconcilable opposites or could a creativearchitect – or team (an important distinction) – reconcilethese goals partly or even fully?

I won’t dwell here on questions of how thesite is being parcelled up – it isdisappointing that separate competitionswere organised for ‘building’ and ‘memorial’– but the separation is relevant asbackground information. The ‘building’competition came first probably due to itsscale and fiscal importance, the ‘memorial’being slotted in afterwards with eighttypically minimalist ‘spaces’ mostly usingwater and light, shortlisted. If a morecreative mind took charge of the rebuilding,could the two have been married together?

Pre-Modernist memorials were mostly formal objects – suchas Lutyens’ Thiepval Arch in the Somme, dedicated to theFirst World War dead. Modernism brought us simplerstructures – the Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington DCstands out, more recently Libeskind’s Memorial Gardenoutside his Berlin Museum.

Memorials are described as being places to reminisce, butnormally, not too vividly: no overt references to falling bodieswill appear in the Twin Towers Memorial.To avoid offencethey seem to retract from death and tragedy into the pathosof abstraction or general formality. Memorials inhabit a‘twilight zone’ between architecture and sculpture; linked asthey often are to taboo subjects – here ‘atrocity’ – theysometimes suffer from a lack of reasonedcritique.

But back to the opening question: canLibeskind et al. make the dollar generatorinto the memorial? Can ‘Freedom Tower’itself have the required potency? The foot ofManhattan is already a powerful marker formany US immigrants – including members ofmy own family. Arriving on a ship, one seesthe very empirical lights of Mammon shiningalongside the symbolic Statue of Liberty. Thelatter has a dual purpose – icon andclimbable tourist attraction: how could the‘Freedom Tower’ adequately express thisduality?

The tower height was originally fixed at 1,776 ft – toresonate with America’s Year of Independence – but it fell flat

for me.Nevertheless, I expected it to change post-competition andso it did. It is, however, unusual for the spec to be revisedupwards! The impression is of lip service to the tragedywhilst the fiscal side works in the background: the result

being to simply parcel off a patch of primereal estate purely for memory. The GroundZero site is owned by Larry Silverstein who,together with George Pataki, the CityGovernor, ran an international architecturecompetition to find an architect/scheme forthe site. The shortlist was whittled downeventually to Daniel Libeskind – radicalPolish-born architect – and Rafael Vinõly – aconservative but contemporary architectborn in Mexico.

But cries of ‘sell-out to Silverstein’ –especially from relatives – drown out thelogic of this situation: as with the Swiss Rebuilding in London [rebuilt after years of

IRA bombs], would not the burgeoning tower of real estatebe in fact the most fitting memorial? It should express Cityvalues, embody confidence, and emanate determination toprogress. The people who died were primarily part of thebullish capitalist drive to make money: why pretendotherwise? Why wrap obscure reality with cotton-woolly,disconnected abstraction?

Central to the memorial is symbolism and inscription. FromStonehenge to the humble gravestone we see this. Take forexample Louis Kahn’s 1968 abstract memorial to the ‘SixMillion Jewish Martyrs’ proposed for Lower Manhattan: itcontained both – the central pier served as an ohel (chapel),complete with inscription. The written word introduces the

personal – the name you can point to,relate to. An unspoken rule of architectureis that ‘good buildings don’t need signs’ (or,by extension, ‘words’). Yet no architecturalmemorial seems complete withoutinscription. ‘Set in stone’ is a phrase tosuggest permanency – rootedness is acomfort when suffering loss. Hope. Lifeafter death.

Memorials also of course allow the State,organisations and people to make a jointstatement, exert power, show collectiverespect. Just as arguments exist aroundthe extent of ‘respectful’ space around citycathedrals – for example the years of

vigorous debate around Paternoster Square’s relationship toSt Paul’s Cathedral – so the same applies for memorials: domonuments really need space? Discussion regarding this site

Memory Marker:Remembrance of Things Past

By Adrian Welsh

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seems to have revolved around the notion ofamount of space given over to ‘memorial’: space= respect.

This corollary comes from the public/privateopposition that has characterised debate onurbanism for decades: the more ‘public realm’,the greater the developer’s generosity andperceived benevolence towards the populace.The demand for rent creates maximumdevelopment by default. The Public appears towant ‘sacrifice’ where possible. Here thesacrifice could be a viewing platform at the top of ‘FreedomTower’ a contemplative pool or a square for parades andgathering. The clever bit (in developers’ eyes) is to dress thenecessary space around the building (building laws related tolight, etc.) up as this ‘sacrificial space’.

Monuments in the past were largely grand and impersonal,arching over singularity to create plurality and collectivistaspirations but mostly subjugation. The Arc de Triomphe,Nelson’s Monument, the Monument to the Great Fire ofLondon all rise above an urban context to dominate thehumane.

But what validates ‘monument, differentiates it from sculptureor building? Does the ‘title’ matter if you realise there exist‘living structures’ (The London Eye) and ‘functionlessbuildings’ (Calton Hill’s National Monument)? The GroundZero site will be home to one of the most observedmemorials ever, trying to come to terms with huge,spectacularly vicious loss of life, and in one of the world’slargest and most popular cities. New York often seems toepitomise what we think a city should be. The memorial willbe a marker for more than atrocity: it will also become amarker for cities, architecture and society in the future.

The agenda of the people, the owner/developer, city andstate may all vary. Monuments generally use scale, heroicforms, emblems/icons, metaphor and allusion. This Markercould synthesise function and memory and be emblematic ofNew York. Empirical institutions and situations of the citystand as allegories of the invisible substance of society as awhole.

Politically the site has to represent unbroken spirit,confidence to progress, unhindered by fears of terrorism ofthe populace, but without creating what Gideion termed‘devaluation of symbols’, empty gestures of civicmonumentalism. Monuments should be catalytic. Tensionbetween the ‘opposites’ could be played up or down.Aspirations of State could transmit to surging height orconnotations of peace and freedom.

In Rossi’s The Architecture of the City he defines monuments as‘primary elements in the city which are persistent andcharacteristic urban artefacts. They are distinguished fromhousing, the other primary element in the city, by theirnature as a place of symbolic function, and thus a functionrelated to time, as opposed to a place of conventionalfunction, which is only related to use’. A monument isdialectically related to the city’s growth.

In these days of super-fastmedia dissemination, thepermanence of solidphysical memorial may be awelcome antidote, but thepossibilities for memorialwould have multiplied ifNew York wanted a moreimaginative expression ofthe current zeitgeist.Imagine loops of crashfootage on a massive

screen, raining mannequins projected from above, the smellof kerosene and worse, screams and sirens blasted aroundthe site complete with multi-screen slivers of reaction frombereaved families. However, this is not a horror film-set buta place of reconciliation for the bereaved, for East and West,conservative and radical.

Libeskind is working on a book fittingly about ‘tragedy,memory and hope, and the way architecture can reshapehuman experience’: his asymmetric tower ostensibly followsthe Statue of Liberty so unless the forces of commercepuncture this concept, we will have iconoclastic towersforming a lop-sided symbolic gateway. Neither forms atraditional abstract solid, the obelisks, pyramids and towersof the past. The Twin Towers form modern day icons blastedinto people’s minds. The Towers were considered by manyto be ugly, but they will be a hard act to follow. Memory iswhat matters most, not built form.

* In 1946 New York State Legislature set up a WTC Corporation to analysesuch a facility. The World Trade Centre idea formed in 1960* and preliminarydrawings were drawn up by SOM, who slipped in behind Libeskind 43 yearslater (via David Childs). Michigan-based Minori Yamasaki and Emery Roth &Sons completed the Twin Towers between 1966 and 1973. Yamasaki had over100 schemes, one being a single 150-storey tower. Towers 1 and 2, nicknamed‘David and Nelson’ after the supportive Rockefeller Brothers, becamequintessential New York symbols, appearing on a large proportion ofpostcards.