December 20, 2004

Click images to see them larger Images courtesy DBOX/ LMDC

In what has become a familiar ritual, the LMDC unveiled its latest round of developments at Ground Zero on December 16, this time releasing updated schematics for the World Trade Center Memorial.

The newest plans were released and described at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in Battery Park City by Memorial architect Michael Arad, now a partner at Handel Architects. Arad was joined by a design team that includes landscape architect Peter Walker, and associate architect Max Bond.

Arad’s original design includes two gigantic voids standing on the footprints of the Twin Towers, water cascading down them into reflecting pools. Updated, more “precise” details of the memorial include “Memorial Hall,” a space between the two pools for visitors to sit and reflect, and a gathering place that provides a directory to help find names of those lost. The new designs also include clearer plans for the remnants of the Trade Center itself. At bedrock, exposed box beam remnants, which lined the original towers’ bases, can be seen and touched by visitors, while large portions of the towers’ exposed slurry wall will be left intact, viewed along ramps leading down from street level, and also viewable from bedrock.

New schematics also updated the landscaped civic plaza at street level of the memorial. With plans for a canopy of hundreds of oak trees forming a “memorial grove,” randomly aligned in one direction (for natural effect) and orderly from the other direction, forming what Walker said were, "colonnades very much like a cathedral."

“We have refined the design and reinforced its intent,” said Arad, who won the commission about a year ago over 5,201 submittants.

Sam Lubell