WTC Memorial, New York

Architect: Michael Arad
Text: Ágnes Bihari
Photos: Ruder*Finn Arts & Communications Counselors, New York

Inaugurated on the tenth anniversary of the tragedy, September 11th, 2011 WTC Memorial is the joint work of Michael Arad architect and Peter Walker landscape designer. The design was selected from a total of 13,000 submitted for the tender published in 2002. The memorial taking up 65,000 square metres is actually in honour of the victims of two attacks. Sunk into the ground, the basins represent the memory of the people dying here as absence. On the bronze panels covering the walls of the pools we can read approximately 3,000 names – of the victims of the attacks as well as those of the 1993 attack. The park embracing them has been associated with the concept of peace, reconciliation and saying yes to life by Michael Arad: the greenery slowly occupies and covers the area esembling the healing wound caused by the attack. On the site of the horizontal plan of the twin towers flanked by the biggest artificial waterfall of the world and the site with a gallery forest are now adjacent on one side to the seven-storey underground memorial museum designed by the Norwegian Snøhetta and the American Davis Brody Bond Adeas designer company.