The winning design in the competition to build a 9/11 memorial is out of step with the mood of New Yorkers, reports Ian Kilroy
In the US, Ground Zero is sacred ground. Those who died in the debris of the falling towers are regarded as heroes. The World Trade Centre plot has joined Normandy's Omaha Beach and the battleground of Gettysburg as a sacred site in the American mind.
How to commemorate the thousands that died on that fateful day was always going to be a point of controversy. Among the fallen were people of every race and creed. Whatever symbolism the memorial drew on would have to be relatively universal, articulated in an architectural and artistic language that was neutral enough to commemorate the Christians, Muslims and Jews who died on that day, the many nationalities that were affected. That the chosen design would be controversial was inevitable. That it was so controversial was surprising.
Early indications that something was wrong came when the Municipal Art Society of New York polled 15,000 people for opinions on the final designs under consideration. The eight finalists had been chosen from more than 5,200 submissions, but not one of the eight was regarded favourably by the public in the poll. New Yorkers simply didn't like them.
Then, on January 6th, when the winning design was announced, the Coalition of 9/11 Families came out publicly against the choice. Anthony Gardner, a spokesman for the Coalition, who lost his brother in the Twin Towers attack, said "we are extremely disappointed". He added that the design was minimalist and that "you can't minimise the enormity of September 11th, you can't minimise the deaths". Soon the media were joining a growing chorus of criticism.
The New York Post claimed that the chosen design, by 31-year-old Israeli-born architect Michael Arad, was funereal and drab. "Rather than affirm heroism or resolve, it celebrates defeat," stated the Murdoch-owned tabloid.
The reaction of the New York Times was equally lacklustre: "Our initial reaction to Reflecting Absence [the name of the winning design] was discomfort with its starkness."
In an opinion piece in Newsday, architect Marc Spector's criticism was that "the design does little to single out any of the rescue workers . . . It does not resonate with the power of the events being commemorated".
USA Today was one of the few publications supportive of Arad's design.
Even former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani went public with his view that "none of the designs won the hearts and minds of the people".
What seems to have riled the critics of Reflecting Absence is the low-key, sombre simplicity of the design. A large open plaza was to spread out at street level, with two reflecting pools sunk 30 feet into the earth where the footprints of the Twin Towers remain.
With no buildings on the site, water would cascade into the two pools, the walls surrounding the pools engraved with the names of those that died. It would be minimalist and non- triumphant, a "symbol of loss" that would "create a place where we may all grieve and find meaning", as the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC), the body responsible for the memorial, announced.
Just a month before, there was no such furore when the details of The Freedom Tower were released. Standing next to the site planned for the memorial, the tower will be the tallest building in the world, rising triumphantly to 1,776 feet, a figure heavy with the symbolism of the 1776 declaration of American independence. The design evokes the nearby Statue of Liberty in shape. It will be a monument to capitalism, 60 stories of shimmering glass for office space, a brave statement of what the US stands for.
The fallout from the criticisms of the memorial design has been a reappraisal by the LMDC. The unusual step was taken of tweaking the design already announced as the winner. The 13-strong competition jury insisted that landscaping artist Peter Walker be brought on board to alleviate the starkness of Arad's vision. So the two men worked together with Daniel Libeskind, who is overseeing the plan of the entire World Trade Centre site, including the Freedom Tower, and came up with a revised plan, announced - again with much fanfare - in New York last Wednesday.
The key changes are that Walker will add a substantial landscaping element to soften the hard minimalism of the design, with "teeming groves of trees" which the LMDC describes as "traditional affirmations of life and rebirth". Access will now be allowed to the bedrock base of the Twin Tower foundations, so that people can get close up and feel the rawness of the site after the attack. Also, a series of cultural buildings will be constructed on the site, contrary to Arad's original design. Included are subterranean catacomb-like rooms that the public will access under the two reflecting pools. One room will house the still unidentified remains of many victims. Another will be solely for the relatives of those who died, with a separate space for the public to light candles and leave flowers.
One other important change is that rescue workers who perished will now get special acknowledgement by having the insignia of the agency they worked for (NYPD, the Fire Service, and so on) appear beside their names on the engraved walls around the two reflecting pools. Names of all the victims will appear in random order, to signify the randomness of the attack.
While this latest altered design was released this week as the final blueprint for the Reflecting Absence memorial, the LMDC has left the door open to respond to further criticisms by stating that the design may "evolve still over time". That being the case, it is likely that more criticism will come and that the design will continue to change to accommodate it.
The religious right in the US has already expressed disappointment that Reflecting Absence is bereft of religious symbolism - particularly the crushed metal beams in a crucifix form that has stood at the Ground Zero site since the rescue efforts and clean-up of 2001.
Arad's problem seems to have been that his original design did not reflect the gung-ho heroic reading that prevails in New York of the tragic events of September 11th. His vision is out of step with the public mood.
His design is quiet and meditative. It focuses the mind on the loss and grief of the events that transpired, rather than the framing of those events as a shining example of patriotic American heroism, the kind of reading that was emphasised when the US went first into Afghanistan and then into Iraq.
If the controversy about Reflecting Absence is reminiscent of anything, it is of the one about the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington DC, first dedicated in 1982. Designer Maya Ying Lin's stark black granite wall, inscribed with the names of the fallen, was deemed too defeatist and funereal by many veterans, so a more macho and heroic piece by Frederick Hart was added alongside it in 1984.
It is not surprising that Lin was on the jury that picked Arad's piece, which in its original form had a mood similar to her own work. And it will not be surprising if, eventually, some more heroic elements are incorporated into the Ground Zero site, just as they were at the Vietnam site.
But whether the memorial ultimately has a heroic or regretful tone is of less importance than the fact that those killed tragically on that autumn day will at least be commemorated. It's a lot more than the forgotten thousands who have perished in the backlash since will ever get.