 |
But at any rate, our proposal is now displayed online (see links below).
The text I wrote was as follows:
Like many who initially visited the site, we were drawn by an instinctive sense of its importance, and a feeling that being there would help us understand its painful history. But once there, we were confounded by how to respond to the vacant space. From force of habit, ones eyes wandered upward to the now-chaotic skyline. It was somehow less difficult to note peripheral rebuilding than struggle with the crater before us. One looked up, and faced the skyline. One looked down, to find the footprints.
Yet finding where the buildings had stood was not the key to finding meaning at the site. We soon realized that what connected the buildings to each other, to the ongoing life of the city, and to the community of the world beyond, was not the north-south axis delineating them, but the line of death connecting us who live to all who died.
We decided that the remains should not be relegated to some corner, but made the gravitational center of the memorial. That is what matters; it is the lives that made this place sacred. Thus we envisioned a single, central grave extending along one side of the north-tower footprint to the opposite side of the south-tower footprint. Beneath the line would be buried the unidentified remains.
However the line did not stand in isolation. Neither does death exist apart from life, a life one day brutally halted. There is a tragic drama to the space. Not once, but twice it was violently entered, and twice lives torn away. Finally what was left was the rough, naked frame of the slurry wall, its amputated girders still protruding in a piercing elegy.
Echoing the slurry wall, the gravestone would form its relief, as if physically wrenched away that day. On the west side of the grave, the stone would be stabbed with the wounds of separation. But this rupture between the living and the dead wounded not just the gravestone but also the plain between it and the slurry wall. In the chasm suddenly formed is a fragile ground, plowed in vulnerable grief and vivid memory.
Like the forest slowly recovers from raging fire, as our city slowly heals of its wounds, so this area gradually becomes a lush garden of vitality. The jagged hollows of violated ground will be slowly hallowed with a gentle carpet of trees and flowers and grass.
Healing happens unevenly. Thus, the undulating earth reaching into the north-tower footprint will form scattered pools of water, like wells for the tears of ongoing mourning. Bounding this garden to the east will be the line a constant reminder of all that was lost, and all that was risked.
As people walk along the grave, it will not fence them in with the grief of the past. Because some paid their lives for others escape, the wall of death was broken that day. In the middle of deaths march through our city, life broke through in the courage of sacrifice. We invite visitors to reach into that hope-filled break after they reach out in grief to touch the grave. Water will flow over the gravestone, in cleansing ablution for those touching the names, or reaching into the wounded relief of the slurry walls imprint on the grave. But then they can reach between the grave walls with their whole body and step into the hopeful space beyond.
That space is a grassy plaza between the museum and the south-tower footprint. The footprint will be covered in water, evoking the peace that comes with full healing. By light of day, the footprint will be a giant reflecting pool, inviting people to look upward from the crater of their sorrow. The footprint ends at the east wall of the site, where Libeskinds powerful waterfall stands as a monument to the hopeful possibility of spring, which always vanquishes the harshest winter ravages. No life is smooth or pristine, or free from sorrow, but beauty and hope survive when love is extended courageously.
|
|
