UPDATED: A Look At the 9/11 Memorial, Museum and Monument Designs at Ground Zero.

above: aerial view rendering of the 9/11 Memorial

above: one of the two 9/11 Memorial bronze name-etched reflecting pools in the foreground and the 9/11 Museum Pavilion entry in the background

Today, on the 10th anniversary of the tragic terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centers' twin towers and the Pentagon, there will be several memorials taking place as we honor the victims with moments of silence and reflection.

Below, President Obama, President Bush and their wives visit the Reflections of Absence this morning:


above photo by Robert Deutsch-Pool/Getty Images

The 9/11 Memorial will be dedicated on September 11, 2011 (today) in a special ceremony for victims’ families. Therefore, it is fitting that today I share with you photos, renderings, images and information about the 9/11 Memorial; its monuments, plaza and museum at the site of Ground Zero.


above photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

above photo AFP PHOTO/POOL/Justin Lane


Reflecting Absence



above: Water Falls in the Memorial North Pool (Photo by Joe Woolhead)

The 9/11 Memorial by Michael Arad (formally named "Reflecting Absence") is located at the site of the former World Trade Center complex, and occupies approximately half of the 16-acre site. The memorial features two enormous waterfalls and reflecting pools, each about an acre in size, set within the footprints of the original twin towers.



above: an aerial renderings of 9/11 Memorial Plaza and site


above: a cross-section of the Memorial Plaza and the Museum Pavilion and interior

above and below: rendering of the Bronze Names Parapets




above: a birdseye view of the 911 Memorial Monuments at night

The 2,983 names
The 2,983 names of the men, women, and children killed in the attacks of September 11, 2001 and February 26, 1993, are inscribed into bronze parapets surrounding the twin Memorial pools, located in the footprints of the Twin Towers.



Every name has a code containing N for North Pool or S for South Pool, followed by a panel number that locates it on one of the Memorial Pools.



Names are placed within nine primary groups.


Around the North Pool:
World Trade Center North
Flight 11
February 26, 1993

Around the South Pool:
World Trade Center South
First Responders
Flight 175
Pentagon
Flight 77
Flight 93

Requested adjacencies within these groups:
Names are arranged by affiliation, so that the employees of a company or the crew of a flight are together. The next-of-kin of the victims and surviving colleagues made additional requests for specific names to be inscribed next to one another. Some requests were between relatives and friends; others were between people who had just met, but who responded together as events unfolded.



This design allows the names of family, friends, and colleagues to be together, as they lived and died. The requested adjacencies reflected on the Memorial make it unique from any other in existence.


above: rendering of interior of the Memorial Hall, a view of the reflecting pools from beneath

You can search for a name on the memorial here.

Memorial Plaza by Peter Walker and Partners

above: With its grove of trees, the Memorial’s plaza is an actual green roof for the structure housing the 9/11 Memorial Museum (May 2011, Photo by Joe Woolhead).

The landscape architecture of Memorial Plaza was designed by Peter Walker and Partners of Berkeley, CA. and is one of the most sustainable, green plazas ever constructed. Its irrigation, storm water and pest management systems will conserve energy, water and other resources.



above: renderings of the 9/11 Museum Plaza

Rainwater will be collected in storage tanks below the plaza surface. A majority of the daily and monthly irrigation requirements will be met by the harvested water.


above: The Survivor Tree Blooms on the Memorial Site (Photo by Amy Dreher)

The Memorial Museum and Entry Pavilion
The Museum’s entry pavilion was designed by the Norwegian architecture firm, Snøhetta and the underground museum exhibit space by Aedas, Museum architects.

The Mission of the Memorial Museum, located at the World Trade Center site, is to bear solemn witness to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and February 26, 1993.


above: a birdseye rendering of the Museum’s entry pavilion

Visitors to the Memorial Museum will be presented with a sequence of experiences which allow for individual and personal encounters within an overall context of a historical narrative.


above: a rendering of the Museum’s entry pavilion

The nature of the Museum is such that the shell of the space, comprising existing foundations, the slurry wall and other in-situ elements of the site is as much an artifact of 9/11 as the contents of the exhibitions.


above: a rendering of the Museum atrium with Twin Tower "tridents."

Visitors will enter through a pavilion that houses an auditorium for public programming, a multi-purpose area for contemplation and refreshment and a private suite reserved for victims’ family members. Two of the original steel tridents from the Twin Towers will be enclosed within the pavilion’s grand glass atrium, standing as references to the past, while signaling hope for the future.


above: rendering of Memorial Exhibition in the heart of the museum site

Memorial Design Exhibition
The introductory exhibit leads to a gently ramped “ribbon,” toward the core exhibitions at bedrock, the archeological heart of the World Trade Center site.


above: rendering of the interior of the Museum

This descent echoes the ramp that once was used by construction workers to help build the World Trade Center and was again used in the aftermath of the attacks for the recovery and clean-up of the site and by victims’ family members to access bedrock on anniversaries of 9/11.


above: rendering of interactive tables and artifact cases

From the ramp, vistas will be created, providing a sense of the vastness of the site and the scale of the original Towers. Visitors will be able to stand between the locations of the original Twin Towers and experience their scale, which will be referenced by two metal-clad, ethereal volumes. The ramp that will bring visitors to the core Museum exhibitions has already been framed in steel and concrete.


above: rendering of space for remembrances

above: interactive tables and Wall of Faces

The final descent to the base of the site will take visitors alongside the Vesey Street Stair remnant – also known as the “Survivor Stairs,” which was used by hundreds to escape the destruction of the Towers on 9/11.


above: The "Survivor's Staircase" before being moved to the museum



After today's dedication ceremony the 9/11 Memorial will be open to the general public.

This post is in sincere remembrance of those lost in this tragedy. May they rest in peace.

More information can be found here.

some images courtesy of the LMCD and many of the computer renderings in this post were created by Squared Design Lab

In Memorium: Ethel Sweet (neé Weitz) 1911-2008

I suffered a personal loss today. And the world suffered the loss of one more artist.

My grandmother, Ethel, was an artist.
She wasn't a Georgia O'Keefe or a Grandma Moses. She merely painted for herself, her friends and local art shows her whole life. She garnered several first place and honorable mentions at local shows and growing up, my parents' home was filled with her artwork.

She spent countless hours sitting with me as a child teaching me how to 'draw' and always had fresh pencils, paints and paper ready and waiting upon our visits for me, my sisters and my cousins to play with. I couldn't wait to visit her, spend time with her and draw and paint to my hearts' content.

She never stopped painting until she simply couldn't do it anymore... and that was just a year ago at age 96. Just this year, 2008, her work was included in the Hyatt Classic Residence Artist Series.



She was married to my grandfather, Sol Sweet for over 60 years (he passed away in 1990 at age 85) and she was very close to her two sons, my uncle Bob and my father Larry, as well as her daughters-in-law and her 5 granddaughters and her great grandchildren.

She was Yoda-like in her wisdom. She spoke gently, but deliberately, and never judged people or was even the slightest bit catty. I don't think she ever once uttered anything remotely close to sarcasm. She often referred to her five granddaughters as 'cookie' or 'dolly'.

Always patient and kind, she made killer brownies and potato salad. She was the grandma who snuck me to the mall at age 13 to get my ears pierced, despite my dad's insistence that I not 'put holes in my ears.'

Despite being financially comfortable, she was never showy. She was modest in her dress and jewelry and didn't believe in spending money recklessly. She could have worn designer clothes and drove fancy cars, but she wasn't comfortable with that.

She liked beer, sourdough and candied ginger. She didn't like pictures of herself and bizarrely, never had any photos of herself in her homes.

Of all my family, she was the animal lover, the one who thoughtfully always asked about my dog (being her only granddaughter who didn't have children).

Being an 'artist' for a living made me feel a special kinship with her. But she was the type of woman who made each of her children and grandchildren feel that way. As if they each had a unique personal bond with her.

Her life in pictures:




She had a wonderful marriage to my grandfather Sol, for over 60 years:



Below: with my father, the eldest of her two boys



And in recent years:

above: July 2004

above: last summer, June, 2007

As an artist, she actually began her career doing advertising illustrations for department stores that ran in newspapers, so you could say she was the first 'art director' I ever knew.
She painted with oils and acrylics as well and in her later years became an adept water colorist.

Some of her early work:

Golden Gate Bridge, 1967

Honorable Mention winner, 1967

As she aged, she continued to send me handmade cards for my birthday and the holidays. Even last year, I received a handmade hand painted birthday card:



Incredibly talented until her final days, my gran even taught watercolor at her Senior Living home until her early 90s. And her work, shown below, was used on holiday cards printed by Hyatt Senior Residence at La Jolla.



I will forever have a hole in my heart now.
She will be greatly missed. And the world will be a little less colorful.