Defending the Modernist Memorial.

 I believe that it is imperative that abstraction in the landscape memorials of the public domain be defended to plan for the inclusion and appreciation of them by all those affected in the community. Communal planning for memorial and gathering spaces should not be so hyper-specifically designed that they either do not apply to all in the community or try to force one perspective down the throats of all in the community. We must consider these moments in our communal planning as ones that serve all members regardless of connection to the event or ideology that is being attempted to be memorialized.

  First, I'd like to discuss the World Trade Center’s “void” approach to memorialization. Reflecting Absence garnered much more hate and unrest than I would have conceived when looking into examples for this had I not waded through one ever-opinionated article. It is noted that the point of the article was to bring to light the criticisms of the design intents, but quotes directly from the author describing the designer of the project such as “Arad [the designer] was visibly nervous, deeply humble, and full of youthful ardor—perfectly cast in other words as an unspoiled idealist eager to lend his clear and innocent vision to public service” not so subtly reveals a dismissal of merit, and to me, reveals the author as imagining themselves in some egotistical, elitist high ground.

           I enjoy the ambiguity of Arad’s design. I believe that it serves the purpose of memorialization without imposing one design viewpoint on the city at large. It serves the larger community through its abstraction by not forcing one hyper-specific moment. Its subtlety is, in my opinion, its greatest boon. It allows for each mourner, visitor, or everyday passerby to form their own opinion and relationship with the tragedy and subsequent regrowth and healing. Thinking about this through the lens of the quote from the journal that “a memorialization lasts 80 years, cities last for hundreds” makes this ideological dichotomy even more fickle, and leads me to believe that interpretive, minimal concepts in memorials may be more powerful and hold more longevity than any on-the-nose memorial ever could. Would a citizen of New York in the year 2250 even have a grasp on what 9/11 was to us? I think that they probably would not, so specific motifs in the memorial would be lost on them, whereas subtle, abstract ideas in the memorial could stick and be more of an all-encompassing moment of contemplation.

           One of my biggest gripes with the complaint that the monument “could have gone anywhere” and that it was “too generic” is the glaring fact that the hurt and anguish that came along with the events of September 11, 2001, were not localized to the towers themselves, or even to the city of New York. I'll step back and say that of course, the most immediate overwhelming pain comes from that site, but this blow was one with a wide blast radius, a blast radius that spans from Virginia Beach to Los Angeles. It spans beyond even the boundaries of the United States of America. The rest of the world could feel the blow of a tragedy like this, whether it be through empathy and solidarity, or out of fear that if something like that could happen in New York, what is stopping it from happening in the collective “here”? All of that to say, the monument does not need, in my opinion, to be hyper-site specific, event-specific, culturally specific, or worldview-specific. It simply needs to address the pain in a way that is respectful and allows all who see it to recognize that this is a place to reflect, remember, and contemplate an event that has changed the way that things operate the world over. It is my opinion that the massive 200-foot square holes in the ground are an unmistakable marker of contemplation. I think that the designer who conceptualized the project, Michael Arad, said it best when he said, “I like to describe it as the built equivalent of a moment of silence, a place that encourages introspection.”

           Contemporary, abstract, minimal design in memorialization as quoted in one of the articles noted at the bottom of this blog post, “what makes them important is precisely their resistance to easy translation, the mysteries they harbor, their difficulties”, is, in fact, the strongest argument for this design and ones like it. It does not impose one viewpoint on how one properly mourns or remembers an event on the citizens who will engage with it the way a hyper-specific, over-the-top, marvelous memorial would. It allows the design to be the backdrop for contemplative thought within the minds of everyone who interacts with it. Abstraction or minimalism in memorial design is, inherently, not going to be fully specific to one thing. That is alright. The moments of somber design and sheer scale and weight of the site, and many like it, should be enough to promote remembrance, or at the very least, contemplation for generations to come.

Again, when planning for community engagement with memorialization (almost every community has some this on some level) we need to ensure that the memorial is viable and appreciated by all members of the community. We cannot try to force one viewpoint down the throats of anyone. Abstraction in communal planning is a great way to achieve this. Allow people to take a well designed space or object and form their own appreciations and interpretations of it. This allows for all community members to feel that they have a place and a voice in their contexts.

LINKS TO CONSIDER

https://land-collective.com/the-evolution-of-a-modernist-memorial/

https://www.tclf.org/category/landscape-style/modernist

Cited and considered

Princenthal, Nancy. “Absence Visible: Chosen by a jury from 5,201 submitted proposals, the design for the world trade center memorial is both the epitome of tact and a consummate expression of bafflement.” Issues and Commentary. April 2004

Rybczynski, Witold. “Less Is Less: Was minimalism the proper design response to commemorate September 11?”. Design. March 2004

Ulam, Alex. “World Trade Center Memorial: Hundreds of Swamp White Oaks dominate the space around the two voids in lower Manhattan, where the towers of the world trade center stand. The plaza of the 9/11 memorial is built upon a huge green roof.”