|
link Lower
Manhattan Development Corporation |
Memory Foundations
I arrived by ship to New York as a teenager, an immigrant, and like
millions of others before me, my first sight was the Statue of Liberty and
the amazing skyline of Manhattan. I have never forgotten that sight or
what it stands for. This is what this project is all about.
When I
first began this project, New Yorkers were divided as to whether to keep
the site of the World Trade Center empty or to fill the site completely
and build upon it. I meditated many days on this seemingly impossible
dichotomy. To acknowledge the terrible deaths which occurred on this site,
while looking to the future with hope, seemed like two moments which could
not be joined. I sought to find a solution which would bring these
seemingly contradictory viewpoints into an unexpected unity. So, I went to
look at the site, to stand within it, to see people walking around it, to
feel its power and to listen to its voices. And this is what I heard, felt
and saw.
The great slurry wall is the most dramatic element which
survived the attack, an engineering wonder constructed on bedrock
foundations and designed to hold back the Hudson River. The foundations
withstood the unimaginable trauma of the destruction and stand as eloquent
as the Constitution itself asserting the durability of Democracy and the
value of individual life.
We have to be able to enter this ground
while creating a quiet, meditative and spiritual space. We need to journey
down, some 30 feet into the Ground Zero Memorial site, past the slurry
wall, a procession with deliberation.
The foundation, however, is not
only the story of tragedy but also reveals the dimensions of life. The
Path trains continue to traverse this ground now, as before, linking the
past to the future. Of course, we need a Museum at the epicenter of Ground
Zero, a museum of the event, of memory and hope. The Museum becomes the
entrance into Ground Zero, always accessible, leading us down into a space
of reflection, of meditation, a space for the Memorial itself. This
Memorial will be the result of an international competition.
Those who
were lost have become heroes. To commemorate those lost lives, I created
two large public places, the Park of Heroes and the Wedge of Light. Each
year on September 11th between the hours of 8:46 a.m., when the first
airplane hit and 10:28 a.m., when the second tower collapsed, the sun will
shine without shadow, in perpetual tribute to altruism and
courage.
We all came to see the site, more than 4 million of us,
walking around it, peering through the construction wall, trying to
understand that tragic vastness. So I designed two ramps, one from Liberty
Street running along the great slurry wall and one from Greenwich, behind
the waterfall to the southern edge of the site. Now everyone can see not
only Ground Zero Memorial site but the resurgence of life.
The exciting
architecture of the new Lower Manhattan Rail station with a concourse
linking the Path trains, the subways connected, hotels, a performing arts
center, office towers, underground malls, street level shops, restaurants,
cafes; create a dense and exhilarating affirmation of New York.
The
sky will be home again to a towering spire of 1776 feet high, the Antenna
Tower with gardens. Why gardens? Because gardens are a constant
affirmation of life. A skyscraper rises above its predecessors,
reasserting the pre-eminence of freedom and beauty, restoring the
spiritual peak to the city, creating an icon that speaks of our vitality
in the face of danger and our optimism in the aftermath of tragedy. Life
victorious.
Daniel Libeskind
New York
Febuary,
2003
|
