http://www.wtcsitememorial.org/ent/entI=446649.html
You approach the memorial descending an escalator to walkways suspended above a reflecting pool. As you look around, you see the imposing slurry wall enclose the memorial site and aware of the tragic proportions of destruction and loss of people at the World Trade Center on 9/11/01.
The reflecting pool as the first stratum in a composition of historical layers is a recollection that the site was actually in the Hudson River and the slurry wall in fact protects the site from deluge. Here, the quality of reflection is intended to translate the ethereal in physical form.
A second stratum is a scaled form of perimeter docks that once lined the edge of Manhattan. This level provides seating for reflection and contemplation. It is accessed from the network of walkways and ramps.
Paths for movement to and between the program elements as well as entry and exit to the memorial are situated on a third stratum. The form if this network is scaled down from the historical street pattern of the immediate area. This pattern provides a variety of pathways to form a reconstituted urban landscape within the bounds of the site.
Space for contemplation within the tower footprints are on a fourth stratum. In the north tower bounded by the perimeter of the footprint are 26 alphabetized columns as etched glass enclosed vessels. These vessels contain soil and remains from from the site and are incised with the names of the perished. The south tower will contain space for families and loved ones of the victims and space for a final resting place for the unidentified remains from the site. The floor of these spaces are glass over the reflecting pool and the ceiling, the underside of the sod roof. The intention is to remember the victims in-between history layers floating in timeless ethereal space.
Sod-covered roof terraces of the tower footprints are the fifth stratum. The north tower has skylights over the glass vessels. The south tower has an inverted mimic of the glass vessels in white marble totems also incised with the victims names. This is the prominent public area of the memorial.
A skeletal cathedral in white is the uppermost stratum. An open-frame as shroud. The crystalline, fractured umbrella is supported by a forest of white marble columns and is intended to recall the ruin of collapsed metal casting lead-cased shadows.
Taken together, the strata are a kaleidoscopic history of the site and give meaning and honor to those who perished here. The families and loved ones of the people who lost their lives that day and February 26, 1993, survivors, heroes, and all others in support, can look to this site to remember the past and contemplate the future in this new place that recalls and records the ramifications of the tragedy.
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