Memorial
Square
In the tradition of Rockefeller Center and Union Square, we propose
to build a great public space for New York City at the World Trade
Center site. We call this Memorial Square. While the 19th and 20th
century precedents for urban plazas are contained spaces, our 21st
century Memorial Square is both contained and extended, symbolizing
the connections of this place to the city and to the world.
Memorial Square is defined on the east and north sides with hybrid
buildings that rise 1,111 feet, restoring the Manhattan skyline
with geometric clarity in glowing glass. At ground level these
buildings form a unique array of ceremonial gateways leading into
the site. These thresholds of reflection open onto Memorial Square,
a place that supports daily activities while allowing moments
of contemplation and silence.
To the west, two glass-bottom reflecting pools demarcate the
footprints of the former World Trade Center towers. Beneath them,
the volumes of the footprints become sites for memorial rooms
lit from above. The pools overlook two memorial groves of trees,
planted to mark the final shadows cast by the towers moments before
each fell. Nearby, new proposed cultural facilities include a
Memorial Museum and Freedom Library, a Concert Hall and Opera
House, and Performing Arts Theaters, which frame the edges of
the site.
Memorial Square sets a precedent in its potential for multiple
memorials sites, beginning with the ground plan. These sites will
be the locations for an international memorial competition. Given
the nearly 2,800 people who died here and the thousands more who
were physically and emotionally scarred by the horror of September
11, we believe that it is not necessary to contain or divide the
site, but to expand it by extending into the surrounding streets.
This is achieved through a series of "fingers," reminders
that the magnitude of what happened here was felt far beyond the
immediate site. At the same time, they facilitate connections
between Memorial Square, the waterfront, the proposed NYC Transit
Center, and greater Lower Manhattan. Laid on the existing grade,
the stone-paved fingers are also visual and acoustic reference
points.
The essence of the ground plan reappears in the composition of
the buildings, which only occupy 27 percent of the site, leaving
the remaining twelve acres to be developed as public space. The
two buildings comprised of five vertical sections and interconnecting
horizontal floors, represent a new typology in the tradition of
innovative skyscraper design. In their quiet abstraction, the
buildings suggest screens of presence and absence, encouraging
reflection and imagination. The cantilevered ends extend outward,
like the fingers of the ground plan, reaching toward the city
and each other. Nearly touching at the northeast corner of the
site, they resemble the interlaced fingers of protective hands.
An architecture of dignity is not only possible here, it is absolutely
necessary. In the belief that from a monumentally tragic occurrence
can come to life-affirming opportunity, Memorial Square is a place
of living memory, a sacred precinct where loss is remembered and
renewal is celebrated.
|