Taking a Step Back
Something we've all been thinking.
Rethink The Type Of Memorial We WantThe fault is not with the designers, but with the process. Everything about the rebuilding of Ground Zero, and the memorial in particular, has been rushed. With a Republican Governor and Mayor, there is only one date that mattered to the rebuilding process: the opening of the Republican convention in New York next August. The laying of the cornerstone for Liberty Tower and for the memorial has been preordained to occur when George Bush rolls into town.
But although some might like to blame it all on the Republican Party, there were even more fundamental flaws in the process. The focus of the program guidelines was on recognizing the individuals who perished, and not about how future Americans would understand 9/11 and might move forward. As a result the jury has chosen eight beautiful designs for a cemetery, but no designs for a living memorial to 9/11. Our obsession with building increasingly more clever, and complicated, memorials to remembering individuals who lost their lives in disasters has steered us far away from an older way of thinking about memorials, one that looked more toward a common future than to individual loss.
* Ray, 11/25/2003 09:48:30 AM
