Less is Less

One thing that was made clear while reading the articles, "Less is Less" by Witold Rybczynski, "World Trade Center Memorial" by Alex Ulam, and "Absence Visible" by Nancy Princenthal, is that not everyone will feel that the memorial created is right. The World Trade Center's memorial is one of innovation, with its state-of-the-art irrigation system, and the trenches in which the trees are planted as is noted in the article by Alex Ulam. In this article, he focuses on the landscape created by Walker. However, it does not seem that landscape design is the one that people are having issues with. It seems according to the article "Less Is Less" when the initial eight finalists of the World Trade Center memorial were announced, the response of the public was negative saying that the designs were "too uninspired, too generic" and that they offered "theatricality, gadgets, spectacle, the stuff of entertainment and shallow pleasure." In the article, it is made quite clear how Witold Rybczynski feels about the World Trade Center memorial. At one point near the end of the first introductory paragraph, he says, "Here was the site itself, the actual place where more than 2,700 people had been murdered by terrorists in a horrendous act of war. And the best we could do was pools of water, technical gimcracks, and lists of victims' names?" When I read this all I could think was how much harder it would be to have an actual site for a memorial versus creating a memorial to commemorate an event that happened overseas. In Washington, D.C. there is the Korean War Veterans Memorial, Vietnam Veterans Memorial, World War II Memorial, and so on, all memorials, all commemorating events that took place out of the country. As a designer, I think it would be incredibly challenging to create a memorial on the grounds where such a terrific event took place, where people lost lives and their loved ones. When creating a memorial on those grounds you cannot just commemorate those people but for the site and what the city lost, especially for the people who live there. There was great pride in the Twin Towers. These buildings, which were designed to be the tallest buildings in the world, stood as a symbol for many Americans of our progressive, not only architecture but economy. So, for many people who looked up at these buildings as symbols of American ingenuity, having them be replaced by these two holes in the earth, where these buildings once stood, was a hard thing to reconcile. In the article "Absence Visible" by Nancy Princenthal there is a quote in there from Arad saying, "Decisions that would not be difficult to make from a design point of view are enormously difficult from an emotional point of view." This made me question, how do you get over the emotional aspect. Is it better to draw a line between the emotional and the professional parts of the job or is it better to let the emotions in and let those rule your judgment? The use of the design style of minimalism was commented on saying "minimalism is particularly appropriate to commemorate the dead of a war about whose precise meaning there is little consensus." This leaves room for the families, veterans, and visitors to create their own meaning from a blank canvas of a wall. However, "there is nothing equivocal" about what happened at this location on 9/11. Beyond the fact of the difficulty and sensitive nature of the location for the memorial, the requirements and already created master plan by Daniel Libeskind only further constricted the design possibilities of what could have been done. This master plan "retained the mammoth hole where the parking garages had been and turned it into a sunken plaza" leaving competition finalists for the memorial design only underground. This only limited and constricted what could have been done here. However, there were many factors that led people to be unhappy with what was left of the World Trade Center, but I feel like no matter what design was created and placed there it would never amount to what people believed this location deserved.

 Citations:

 Princenthal, Nancy. “Absence Visible.” Art in America, Apr. 2004, pp. 38–45. Rybczynski, Witold. “Less is Less: Was minimalism the proper design response to commemorate words words September 11?” Landscaper Architecture, Mar. 2004, pp. 21–24. Ulam, Alex. World Trade Center Memorial.